


In Exile, Seeing You Out

by ChasetheWindTouchtheSky



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Anger, But also very much misses Booker, Canon-Compliant, Canon-like violence, F/F, Forgiveness, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Canon, Someone save me from my bullshit immediately please, because I cannot help myself, everyone is sad and angry, takes place after the movie ends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:13:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 47,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25792675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChasetheWindTouchtheSky/pseuds/ChasetheWindTouchtheSky
Summary: When days are infinite, days blend.Andy wakes up with an ache that seems out of the ordinary, her neck a little more pained than it was yesterday. She’s grateful she’s an early riser, because if Nicky was awake, he’d chastise her for falling asleep in the chair and Nile would go on about the benefits of a good mattress, and Joe would agree with anything Nicky said simply because he could. Andy found herself looking to the left often out of muscle memory when she found Joe and Nicky too much to bear, but Booker wasn’t there.He wasn’t there.***The aftermath of Booker’s betrayal weighs heavy on everyone’s hearts in ways that they didn’t expect. The group thought it would make them feel safer to have the final ruling, but all they do is feel the emptiness of the chair around the table. Except when Quyhn returns and it’s revealed that Dr. Kozak made it out of Merrick, Inc., they know there’s no time to dwell in their pain. Instead, the group looks forward to stay together, and perhaps find a piece that has been missing.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Quynh | Noriko, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 189
Kudos: 551





	1. Insult to Injury

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Hi loves! I’m brand new to this fandom and so ready to dive in. I mean, I am such a slut for found family, so I was morally obligated to feel overwhelmed and full of feelings about The Old Guard. So please forgive my monster inspiration, please?
> 
> Let’s do this! And by this, I mean Lindsey is back on her bullshit loves.

IN EXILE, SEEING YOU OUT

_By ChasetheWindTouchtheSky_

Chapter One

_Insult to Injury_

When days are infinite, days blend.

Andy wakes up with an ache that seems out of the ordinary, her neck a little more pained than it was yesterday. She’s grateful she’s an early riser, because if Nicky was awake, he’d chastise her for falling asleep in the chair and Nile would go on about the benefits of a good mattress, and Joe would agree with anything Nicky said simply because he could. Andy found herself looking to the left often out of muscle memory when she found Joe and Nicky too much to bear, but Booker wasn’t there.

He wasn’t there.

Andy isn’t used to it. She isn’t used to not having him next to her, quick of wit and sly of tongue. She didn’t know how much she relied on him until he was no longer there. He no longer poured bourbon in her tea or rolled his eyes when Nicky said something about the goodness of humanity. They understood each other, they had an agreement. Andy felt his pain like she’s felt the receiving end of a broadsword more times think. She wanted to revel in her annoyance of humans and even more so in her annoyance in those she was stuck with.

_You’re still in this shitty game with me._

She said it, and she meant it at the time. He was with her.

“You okay, boss?”

Andy startles at Joe’s voice, his eyes narrowing, as if he’s able to see her soul. Joe’s always been good at reading people – even more so at calling people out. He stands in the kitchen, his hands around a mug of tea as he peers at her. He isn’t as gregarious as he usually is, but no one is. Andy knows Nile can’t quite understand Nicky’s expressions, but she’s known him for almost a millennium. She sees the way his jaw twitches, the anger and guilt in his eyes. Andy considers opening her mouth to say something, but she can’t.

“Fine.” She states, years of compartmentalizing grief coming in full force. “I just need some air.”

As she moves towards the door, she watches Joe go over to where Nicky is and place a gentle hand on his shoulder. Nicky mutters something in Italian, fast and low, Joe closing his eyes in response. She can’t quite make out what he’s saying, but she hears the distinct phrases of _‘it was a mistake’_ and ‘ _need to make right.’_

She can’t listen.

So instead, Andy goes outside, the brisk air of the Spanish countryside hitting her face. She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a small piece of baklava that Nicky saved for her. She brings it up to her mouth, but finds herself hesitating. As if she’s back in the room, she can hear everyone’s laughter when she thwarted Nicky for what feels like the thousandth time.

“You alright?”

Andy wants to snap at the person emerging from the shadows, but finds all heat has evaporated when Nile comes into the moonlight. Andy can’t help but marvel at the newest member of their team. She slotted with them like she’d been there for the ages they all were together. Andy tries not to think about the disaster in Merrick Labs, but Nile saved them all. She saved _her_. In ways Andy isn’t sure she can truly express.

“Always.” Is the response.

“If only I could believe that.” Nile snorts, taking her stance right at Andy’s side. It occurs to Andy that it feels natural to have Nile on her left, like the second she’s always waited for throughout the years.

“You’ll learn to just accept some things, kid.”

“I hope not.”

When she says it, Andy snaps her head in her direction, really looking at the woman before her. “Yeah,” Andy responds quietly. “Me too.”

Nile’s mouth twitches. “Nicky’s upset. Or, at least I think he is. I’m not quite able to read him yet.”

“You’ll get there. You’ll find Nicky is even more transparent than Joe, if you focus less on what he’s saying and more on what his eyes are telling you. It’s the priest in him.”

Nile laughs sharply. “They really are quite a pair.”

“You get used to it after a few decades.”

“Really?”

Andy thinks about it for a moment. “Actually, no. It’s like staring at the sun for too long.”

“It is a lot.” Nile muses.

Andy shrugs. “It’s nice. I mean, you’re new. And you see couples in love all the time. But what you don’t see is the fights, the infidelity, the nasty. Joe and Nicky… you should hear Joe talk about it. He likes to say that he and Nicky are halves of the same soul.” Nile makes a face. “I know, nauseating. But, you know… after watching them for almost a thousand years, you start to believe it a little. It’s nice to see two people totally devoted to one another.”

Niles sighs. “I guess when you put it like that…” Nile doesn’t say anything further, but Andy knows she wants to. It’d be one thing to say Booker’s name, and another entirely to ask her what she’s feeling.

Because Andy’s feeling… a lot. More than she has in years. It buries in her bones like a parasite, making every part of her tired. Sure, it may be her mortality, but at the same time, she just wants to sit across from him, drink in hand, talking about what a shitshow the past few days were. “It won’t always be like this, Nile.”

“Booker said that to me too.”

Andy huffs. Kid’s got balls to not dance around the issue too. “I suppose he would.”

“I don’t understand. How could you be alright with a hundred years? You’ll never see him again, Andy.”

The woman shuts her eyes, feeling the breeze on her skin. She’s colder than she’s ever been. “He was ready to put us in cages, Nile. For whatever it took.”

“But—”

“I can’t talk about this tonight.”

Andy leaves Nile outside.

When she opens the door, she sees Nicky at a small table by the window, a book under his hand. He’s looking at it, but not really seeing. Making her way over to where he is, Andy slips into the free chair across from him. His eyes flick up at her, and he goes back to not reading his book, his free hand holding his head up.

Andy places the baklava on the table between them. “Too much for me.” She states, almost challengingly.

Nicky eyes it. “Not hungry.”

“You were taken for twenty fours hours. I’m sure Merrick wasn’t giving you a four course meal. Eat the damn baklava.”

Nicky looks up at her when she curses, his mouth opening for an argument they’ve had so many times, it’s a joke at this point. But then, he closes it, the humor gone. Instead, he pinches a piece off of the baklava in the center of them, and looks at it. “Nicky.” Andy states calmly.

He takes a bite and doesn’t respond.

“Nicky. It had to be done.”

He pauses his chewing. She wonders if she’s broken him, because he’s sitting there, solid and still, with a piece of baklava half chewed in his mouth. He’s not looking directly at her, so he’s particularly hard to read. The biggest tell of Nicky was his eyes. He must know, because he’s not even facing her.

So she tries something else. “Where’s Joe? I figured you’d two be inseparable tonight.”

Nicky hesitates. Andy knows she’s hit a nerve because he turns. “In the shower.”

“And you’re not with him because…”

Nicky stands up. “It has been a long day.” He places the piece of baklava back on the table, Andy startling. “I think it is best to get some rest. And I think you should get some as well.”

“Nicky—”

He’s already a few paces away. His hands clench around the book. Then, in a quick movement, he whirls around and wraps Andy in a hug. Usually she’s ready for these sort of movements of affection from Joe, but Nicky is more restrained. When he envelops her, she startles. He presses himself against her and holds her close like he’s afraid she’ll disappear. “I know it may be your time, but I am not ready.” He says in a soft Italian that she struggles to understand through the catching in his voice. “I was so afraid.”

Andy finally reciprocates, her hands gripping his shirt. “I know.”

He laughs, sharp and painful. “Did you?” He asks, pulling away to look at her face.

“I know everything, haven’t I taught you?”

“You’re right, my mistake.” Nicky says, tugging her closer.

“What’s going on here?”

Andy looks up to see Joe stepping in the hallway, a towel precariously tied around his waist, his hair still wet from the shower. Nicky doesn’t even move. Andy rolls her eyes and makes a slight gesture to him, to which Joe makes his way over and wraps his arms around the two of them. She can feel Nicky smile into her shoulder, even more so when Nile steps into the safe house and asks, “What am I watching right now.”

“Get in here,” Joe says, gesturing her over.

“What?”

“I am your elder, respect that!”

“You’re literally everyone on the planet’s elder!”

“Not mine.” Andy offers, just because she doesn’t feel like dealing with the weight of what happened the past few days.

That’s what does it.

Nicky laughs.

He laughs in Andy’s shoulder, then he tilts his head back and leans it against Joe’s shoulder, his eyes squeezed shut. Joe throws Andy a look that clearly says ‘holy shit,’ dipping his head so their foreheads hit. What puts it over the top is when Nile actually joins them and Joe all but pulls her in the middle, the four of them together and holding each other.

Andy can’t help but think of what Booker would say if he was here. His exasperation with the theatrics and how he would roll his eyes until Joe glared at him. How even he would melt a bit at Nicky’s earnestness and would snort in Andy’s direction for giving in. How he would love it.

She chews on the side of her cheek, thinking. How she didn’t know. She didn’t _know._ She knew that Booker was in pain, but she didn’t realize how deep the current of despair went. So far so, he did what they were always afraid of.

Nicky straightens after a few moments, his face a little lighter than seconds before. He turns to Joe, who gazes at him softly. The man’s hand intertwines with Nicky’s hair and gives him a slight tug. Nicky lets out a soft laugh and for a moment, he sounds like himself again. Bringing his hand up to Joe’s neck, he pulls him closer, their faces inches apart.

The two share a moment as intimate as moments can be. Andy isn’t sure what conversation made Joe take a shower and Nicky to read a book by the window, but she can guess. Except they’re staring at each other the way they always do, with love, devotion, and something deeper that she remembers years ago.

In a swift moment, Joe dips his head and catches Nicky’s lips. Andy groans, rolling her eyes because her arm is still caught in the middle and Nile is squirming out of their grip. “No, no, no!” She exclaims. “Boundaries, boundaries!”

“No such thing.” Andy sighs.

The two men laugh through their kiss, barely registering that the women have slid out of the embrace. Instead, Nicky brings a hand up to the side of Joe’s face, his fingers gently brushing against the man’s cheek. “I think…” he starts, words careful. “I think it is time to rest.”

Joe’s eyes soften at that, wrapping his own hand over Nicky’s. “Okay, my love.”

Nile tosses Andy a look that reminds her far too much of Booker. She can’t help but smile. It’s nice, even though it’s nauseating.

***

Joe awakens with a sharp jerk, blinking. It doesn’t take long for him to be alert, especially since Nicky is pacing in the middle of the room, running his hands down his face. He knows this mood. Even after a thousand years, the way his hands wring, the way his eyes dart around the room. This is Nicky in fully guilt. “My love, come back to bed.”

Nicky doesn’t startle; he’s clearly known Joe was awake for a while, though he doesn’t move from where he’s pacing. Joe can’t quite make out what he’s saying and quite frankly, isn’t entirely sure what language it’s in or if he’s switching back and forth. “Nicolo, please.”

Nicky startles at that. He turns to face Joe, and it almost immediately reveals that he hasn’t slept at all. There are deep circles under his eyes and his hands are doing the twitching thing that means that there’s too much on his mind and the energy has to come out somewhere. Joe knew he would be upset, but he didn’t realize how bad it’d be. Pulling the blanket off of himself, he stands up to where Nicky is and wraps his arms around the love of his life. Pressing himself against his back, Joe rests his chin on Nicky’s shoulder. “Tell me what’s on your mind, my love.” He says softly in Arabic.

Nicky stills. It’s odd that he doesn’t do anything right away, then after a few moments, his hand comes up to grip Joe’s arm. “I almost lost you.” He says softly. “I-I—”

He takes a breath.

There are no words.

Joe gets it. It’s engrained in him. Actions, not words. The teaching of the Catholic Church. There is no salvation without good deeds. Nicky may not follow much of the Church anymore, but that he keeps with him. He always speaks about doing good – about doing what they think is right. It was never enough to talk about the pain of humanity, he always pushed for action. So, as the words fail, Joe nuzzles his face deeper into his shoulder. He places his hand on Nicky’s chest, hand splayed out. “Heart of my heart.”

Nicky huffs a laugh and sighs. “Yusuf—”

“You and I are going out together. It’s what we agreed on.”

“Yeah,” Nicky says, pressing a kiss against Joe’s arms. “That’s what we agreed on.”

“My moon, it is alright.” Joe mutters. “I’m here.”

“I know.”

He lets out a breath, and clutches Joe tighter. “I know.”

Joe wonders if that’s more for himself than anyone else. It’s said in the breathless way that he recognizes Nicky being in his own head. He doesn’t say anything else because he knows that there isn’t much he can say to bring the love of his life out of it. Instead, Joe pulls himself closer so there isn’t any space between them. He stays there as a presence against Nicky’s chest, Nicky pulling him closer as if there were any space between them.

“I know.”

It’s quiet, like a prayer. Neither of them really pray anymore after years of wandering the world, but it stays with them as something ingrained in their souls. Joe mutters something quiet in his ear and Nicky smiles. “Always know exactly what to say.” He breathes.

“It’s a gift.”

“That it is, my love.”

There’s a soft knock at the door. “Everyone decent?”

Joe snorts into Nicky’s neck, who’s shaking with laughter under his fingertips. When Nile walks into the room, a hand raised as if she’s afraid of what she might find there. Joe fixes her an unimpressed look. “What were you expecting to find, Nile?”

“You know exactly what I was expecting to find.” Nile accuses. “I’ve seen what you two are like in public, I can only imagine what you two are like in private.”

“She has a point, my love.” Nicky offers, leaning his head back.

“No, she’s only been here for a couple days. She doesn’t—”

“You are literally in a giant room and are pressed against each other like you’re in a phone booth.” Nile says, gesturing how they’re standing.

Joe supposes he has to give her that. He doesn’t unwrap his hands from Nicky though, nor does Nicky seem inclined to move. “What do you need, Nile?”

Nile gestures behind her. “Copley’s on the phone. I guess we have a problem.”

“Of course we do.” Nicky sighs, finally moving out of Joe’s embrace. “It is not enough to get more than one night’s rest before the next.”

“A night’s rest would actually mean resting.” Joe says, frowning at the dark circles under Nicky’s eyes.

“Oh my god, no!” Nile exclaims, placing her hands over her ears. “I don’t want to hear that, just like I don’t want to see it!”  
  


Joe can’t help but tilt his head back and let out a loud laugh. He finds the darkness of the last few days shake a bit and he can’t help but be truly grateful for the woman before him. It’s not just that she’s the reason they got out of their cages and she saved Andy’s life, but she was a brightness that he hasn’t seen in a while. There’s something within her that’s strong, yet kind. It’s light and beautiful. “Don’t worry about it, Nile. We’ll have years for you to get used to us.”

“Or you could just learn to lock a door,” she mutters as she turns around to leave.

“I should probably start on breakfast then.” Nicky sighs, reaching over to where his pants are thrown over a chair from the night before. “You know how Andy gets if she doesn’t eat and something bad happens.”

Joe’s eyes widen. “Ah, yes. That’s probably a good idea.” He thinks distantly of a time when he told her before her first cup of coffee that Booker had fallen in a ravine and he wasn’t sure how to get him out. One of the quickest deaths he’d ever experienced.

Nicky strides out, pulling his socks and shoes on as he does so in the quick way of someone whose seen too much war and too many times have been caught off guard. Joe knows Nicky’s expects they will be leaving immediately. It’s the sniper in him, the way his body stills when the world grows chaotic. He loves it about him, but also sometimes curses the unkindness of the world.

Joe knew that Nicky would be upset about Booker, but not like this. The two were the most unlikely of friends – an ex-Catholic priest turned warrior and a solider in Napoleon’s army. But there was a profound love there. Joe can almost hear _“Leave it! Please!”_ from Nicky when they were tied together, the desperation in his voice the only thing keeping Joe from slicing Booker’s neck on the spot once free.

It’s because he’s a sniper. Nicky is accustomed to waiting. He knows the first shot is usually not the best shot. He waits.

“Joe! What are you waiting for?” He hears Andy call from the kitchen, in that way the he’s grown to know usually means _‘get your ass in gear or I’ll fucking kill you.’_

“Coming, boss!” He calls back, mimicking Nicky and pulling his shoes on as he runs out.

Nile and Andy are sitting at the small table in the kitchen while Nicky carefully serves them all. It’s basic eggs and toast – bread and eggs the only thing any of them had a mind to purchase the night before – but Joe has lived with Nicky long enough to know that the man can do magic with a pan, an egg, and a few well-selected spices. He’s shown he’s right when Nile takes a bite and blinks, double-taking the ingredients on the counter. Surely, if she didn’t already know they were immortal, she might accuse Nicky of being a bit of a witch.

“So, what is our friend Copley up to?” Nicky asks when no one starts the conversation, sitting in the chair next to Joe and scooting close enough so that their shoulders touch. Nile rolls her eyes while muttering ‘so unnecessary’ under her breath. “I know you told him to find us jobs, I would not have expected he’d do it so quickly.”

Andy doesn’t respond right away, which worries Joe. He sits up straight, his breakfast untouched. “Boss?” He asks, when she doesn’t answer right away.

Andy takes a bite of eggs and a quick drink of coffee, frowning at it. She looks at her right, the spot where Booker would normally be, sneaking whiskey from his flask. If Joe was a betting man, she was confused why Nicky’s coffee tasted so different for a second. “Copley called to say they were not able to find Dr. Kozak.”

The entire table stills. Even Nile, who clearly was opposed of a lot of the actions the past few days, grows pale. Nicky utters a curse under his breath that would make a priest blush and Joe finds his body growing numb as the fork bends under his grip. “Fuck,” he breathes. It’s quiet, but loud at the same time, the curse echoing in the room. “Fuck!” He shouts, slamming his hand against the table, the now-bent fork clattering to the floor.

Andy doesn’t really need to say anything else.

It was what they always feared. _This_ , Joe thinks. _This is why Booker is banished_. These consequences, these issues they will never get rid of now. He looks at Nicky, who’s already staring at him. He knows what Nicky’s thinking without him having him to utter a word. _A fine justification_. _I’ve heard it so many times before_.

Merrick was dangerous, sure. All he wanted was money and power, and those men were a dime a dozen. Joe has met many of them in his life and he’s certain he’ll meet more. But Dr. Kozak?

She thought what she was doing what was right.

She thought she was saving the world.

It’s far more dangerous than a weak man pulled by the desire of money.

Nicky sets his own fork down, food forgotten. “She will not stop unless she gets the answers she desires.” He states, his words calm, but there’s something brewing underneath. “There is nothing more dangerous than the temptation to be a savior.”

And people say Joe is flowery with words. He reaches out and grab’s Nicky’s hand under the table and Nicky wraps his own without even flinching. Nicky squeezes once, his hands shaking ever-so-slightly. “What do we do in this situation?” Nile asks, the shock wearing off and Joe can see the hints of a soldier coming through.

“We have never been in this situation before.” Joe says, his anger filling up inside. “This was our biggest fear and thanks to Booker—”

“Joe, please.” Nicky says quietly.

“—this is a new reality. And with Andy?” He gestures at her and the woman all but kills him with a stare.

“Not the time, Joe.” She snaps.

“Then when is it?” Joe shouts, eyes wide. He can’t help it – he’s angry and scared and they _just got out_ and he almost lost the love of his life. Joe tries not to think of it, but the memory of the foggy room, the guard kneeling on Nicky’s chest while shoving a gun in his mouth is something he’ll never forget. He couldn’t see, he couldn’t think, he just saw the motions of Nicky trying to grab him away from Joe, dragging the man to the floor. Then, the shot.

Joe has watched Nicky die many times before. Too many times.

But there was something about that time. His brains on the ground, blood seeping to his shirt. Even if he healed, what if something changed? The moment he said _Andy_ with a weak voice, he knew.

As if Nicky knows where his head is, Joe feels the man squeeze his hand to drag him back.

“Andy, you cannot get captured, they will kill you.”

“Joe—”

“And Nile is brand new! We can’t add this on top of it all! And I will _not_ let those people touch the love of my—”

“My love, we are all on the same page.” Nicky says quietly. “We know what this means.”

Joe is standing. He isn’t sure when he stood up, but he did and now is looming over the table, Nicky’s hand still in his. Joe blinks, letting out a shuddery breath. “Right,” he says, nodding and sitting back down.

There’s an awkward silence.

Then Joe sighs. “I need a new fork.”

Nicky does that snort when Joe catches him off guard and he can do nothing else but laugh at him. Once Nicky laughs, it’s like everyone releases a breath. Nile giggles a bit as she takes another bite of eggs, eyes still worried, but relaxed. Andy even rolls her eyes, breaking into a rare smile and standing up, grabbing a fork from one of the drawers, along with a bottle of whiskey. She offers Joe the fork and pours some whiskey in her coffee, sighing with contentment when she takes a drink.

Turning his head, Nicky stares at Joe with a fondness he’ll never be sure if he’ll get used to. It’s fond and filled with love and Joe is reminded not for the first time of how lucky he is to have this man with him through a millennia. He can see the fear around the corner of Nicky’s eyes and the tight grip of their hands. With a small nod, Joe smiles back at his love and Nicky’s mouth twitches up.

He takes a breath. Then another.

***

“You don’t have to go home, you just can’t stay here.”

Booker all but rolls his eyes. He’d think bartenders would have come up with more creative ways of kicking people out, and yet he’s being quoted a stupid song that has long since outlived its welcome in the world. For a brief, terrifyingly cruel moment, Booker wonders if he killed the bartender, if he could just stay in the bar for the entire evening. His gun feels heavy and he has to shake his head to keep the thoughts from growing darker.

Tossing some bills on the table – despite his frustration with the man, he’s pretty sure he accidentally just tipped him roughly fifty dollars – Booker drains his drink and grabs his coat. The brisk, Parisian air hits his face and it almost startles him sober. It’s cold and loud and dark, Booker feeling at home within the back alleys. He lets out a sigh, trying to push the loneliness out of his mind.

There’s a presence that deeply hurts him. He sees her everywhere, each time mortified with the hope that brews in his chest every time he sees the sleek haircut chopped at the neck. Unfortunately for him, it’s a rather popular look in Paris, many slender women with straight brown hair chopped off. He knows Andy won’t come for him because that’s not like her, then again, their goodbye wasn’t like her either. Tears in her eyes, holding onto him like she didn’t want to break apart.

Booker swallows, pulling his flask out of his back pocket and bringing it to his lips. He lets out a shuddery breath, thinking _seven days_ absently, as if it would help. Maybe the pain will fade along with their anger.

Now _that’s_ wishful thinking.

Because Booker knows Joe. The curt nod he received after his punishment was all he needed to know. He expected more when he saw Nicky and Joe tied together in the labs, the anger billowing out of Joe like a presence. Adding Andy’s newfound mortality? He expected Joe to never want to see him again, which meant he’d never see Nicky again. Then again, the punishment was the perfect amount of cruelty to match his cruel actions. To not say goodbye to his dear friend as she died.

If Nicky and Joe were the same soul in two bodies, he often wondered if he and Andy were made from the same stars. Not romantically of course – both of them taking five years to forget a very stupid night on a beach in the Maldives – but a platonic love. He understood Andy the way Nicky and Joe never could, and she him. The best friend he ever had, the person he could make dry comments and they wouldn’t be staring at him, appalled. Instead, she’d laugh at his misery, smack the back of his head, and tell him to stop being dramatic.

When he reaches his room, she’s still there.

Booker sighs. “How many times do I have to tell you, I’m not interested.”

Quynh sits on the filthy chair in the corner, her jacket thrown over the back like she’s moved in. “I’m surprised in you, Booker. You’re alone, isolated, and yet you have no interest in getting back to them.”

“Whatever you’re planning it is not to help them, so I’m not interested in that part.” Booker says, tossing his jacket to the ground because who gives a shit. “Whatever it is, I want no part of it.”

Quyhn picks up a glass of wine on the small table next to her and sips it gingerly. “That makes me so sad, Booker. And here I brought you a present.”

Booker stills at that. He’s not idiotic enough to think any gift from the deadly woman in front of him has anything good to give him, but he’s curious all the same. Turning to face her fully, his eyes narrow. “What.”

“You have been around Andromeda.” She snorts at his suspicion. Flicking on a light, the living room is illuminated.

Strapped to a chair in the middle of the room is Dr. Kozak. The woman has blood trickling from her forehead and a gag wrapped around her mouth. She’s giving off pitiful noises and her eyes widen when Booker catches her eyes. “What the hell are you doing?” Booker exclaims, taking a step back from the woman as if she had needles in her hands and he was strapped to the bed again. Logically, he knows he has every advantage, but he stares at Quyhn.

“I thought I was doing you a favor.” Quyhn says offhandedly, placing her wine down. “You escape from a pharmaceutical lab, but the doctor escapes. Seems like that could end badly for you. Or the people you betrayed.”

Booker breathes heavily. “What game are you playing?”

“No game.” Quyhn says, taking the last few drinks of her wine and standing up. The way she moves is so deadly, like at any moment, she can attack. Which, Booker knows, she may. “My anger is not to you, Booker. You have only been around for two hundred years. I see your pain, and I understand how you feel, being separated by those you love.”

Her words are gentle, and mildly broken, like she is underwater all over again. Booker can’t even imagine. He’s only been alive for two hundred, but five hundred drowning? He has to give the woman credit for even being sound of mind enough to stand before him.

Except there’s a darkness behind her eyes. Something brewing that gives him pause. It is vicious and low. Waiting. It reminds him a bit of Nicky with a sniper rifle in his hand, his entire body cold, waiting. People underestimate Nicky because of his warmth, but with every warm smile, there is a cold killer on the other side.

“Take her. Show Andromeda. Get your family back.”

Quyhn hesitates at the door, her hand gripping the doorframe. “There is nothing worse than be taken before your time, Booker. Do not forget that.”

Booker still hasn’t moved, no words to fall from his lips.

“Until we meet again.”

He doesn’t like the way she’s said this, as if she already had a day in mind. Except she closes the door and suddenly he’s in the room by himself with the woman who tortured his family. She’s straining against the rope and screaming something at him, but he can barely register it.

When his phone rings, he all but jumps. Booker almost threw the damn thing away – he had no need for it if no one would speak to him. Except, there was a small part of him that had hoped someone would call. Now that it’s happened, he isn’t sure what to do.

It’s a number he doesn’t recognize, the small amount of hope he let himself feel dissipating. He wishes he had a drink.

For some reason, wile Dr. Kozak struggles before him, he answers the phone. “ _Bonjour_ ,” he says listlessly.

_“Booker!”_

Booker freezes. “Nile?” He asks, blinking. “Nile, is that you?”

_“Yeah, Booker – you need to know—”_

“Why are you calling me, Nile?” Booker says, annoyed and thrilled all at once. “You realize what my punishment meant, right?”

_“Yeah, but—”_

“How did you even get my number?”

_“Nicky leaves his phone everywhere, I keep telling him the wrong person is going to find it—”_

“Are you the wrong person, Nile?”

_“No, but this is a good teaching moment.”_

Booker can’t help it, he snorts a laugh and runs his fingers through his hair. With her easy words and kind nature, he wishes he was there. He wishes he was in that room, laughing at Nile be exasperated with the people who exasperated constantly. Fuck, he needed a drink.

_“But that’s not why I called. Booker, Dr. Kozak is missing. We don’t know where she is and we’re thinking she’ll sell in the information to another company for the funding.”_

Booker stills. Turning, he sees Dr. Kozak struggling. “Wait—”

_“Copley is trying to see if any of the competition to Merrick Labs has any funding increase to genetic testing and we’re going to see if we can find more information too. But you need to be careful.”_

Booker pauses. “You… you called me to warn me about Dr. Kozak?”

_“Of course I did, idiot! You may not be here, but everyone cares and I care for that matter. And you need to keep yourself safe.”_

Booker looks at the woman before him and thinks of the woman who just left. He didn’t like Quyhn’s words and didn’t like her gift even more. But he couldn’t help but think that she had a point. The thought of a hundred years without them – without seeing Andy again. It’s too much to bear. He had half a mind to make Dr. Kozak a deal to just test on him with the promise to never involve the others.

He knows that is not a promise she would keep.

“Actually,” Booker says, licking his lips and running his hands down his face. “I already knew that.”

_“You did? How?”_

Booker sighs. “Because I’m staring right at her right now.”

There’s a pause on the other side of the phone. He thinks Nile may have hung up, until he hears a gentle curse on the other side of the phone. “You okay?” He asks, desperately wanting this conversation to last longer.

_“Yeah,”_ she sighs. _“Now I have to tell them I stole Nicky’s phone.”_

***

She shouldn’t be nervous, but she is.

The reaction that Booker had Dr. Kozak was instantaneous. Joe exploded into a litany of words she didn’t understand, but knew they were not those you’d say to children. Nicky stilled, then moved over to says something back, but the two were speaking far too fast in Arabic for even Andy to understand what they were saying.

Not that she would’ve, regardless.

The moment Andy heard the news, there was a certain amount of relief on her face, like she was glad that she’d have an excuse to see him again. It makes Nile all the more confused why they landed on one hundred years, because no one really seemed to want it to happen. She isn’t sure what they spoke about when she went to speak to Booker on the Riviera, but by the time she went back into the bar, there was a consensus. No one was really looking at each other and there was a tension she hadn’t felt before. Nile didn’t have the heart to ask, being a painful situation regardless. But even Joe and Nicky were ever-so-slightly apart.

Whatever had happened, it was incredibly painful.

Now, they’re packed in a plane filled with bricks of cocaine and a few unshaven men at the helm. It shocks her how unaffected they all are by this, Nicky and Joe even fast asleep while pressed up against one another as the plane dips and creeks over the world. By the time they get to Paris, no one is talking. It doesn’t take long for them to find Booker’s apartment – in a dingy back alley in Paris that smells of urine and rust.

Nile crinkles her nose at it, but no one else seems to mind. If anything, Joe rolls his eyes at it, using his shoulder to open the back door that screams against the metal as he does so.

When they reach the apartment complex, Andy’s hand hovers over the door before she knocks. Nile rarely sees Andy hesitating, but her hand is an inch from the door and paused. After a few moments, Nicky steps up and knocks gently, giving her arm a slight squeeze.

Booker must’ve been by the door, seeing them from the window because the door opens instantly opens.

He looks like shit.

Nile tries not to make a face, but there’s deep circles under his eyes and she can see a collection of bottles in the corner. Everyone else, however, doesn’t react at all. They simply stand there.

It’s when Nile realizes it’s too soon. Sure, they were haunted by the punishment, but a week was not enough to have the betrayal filter out. Joe crosses his arms, his muscles visible against his soft shirt and Nicky clenches his jaw. It isn’t until Andy pushes past Booker into his apartment that anyone moves.

No one says anything.

Nile nods at Booker as she passes, giving him a small smile as she does so, which he doesn’t return. He looks haunted, broken, and upset all at once and she isn’t sure how he’s fitting all those feelings in.

Once she sees Dr. Kozak, she breaks the silence. “Booker, what did you do?” She cries, seeing the bruises on her face and the woman’s raw wrists.

“Not a fraction of what she did to us.” Joe mutters under his breath and Nicky places a gentle hand on the small of his back. When he feels this, Joe lets out a shuddery breath and tilts his head to nudge Nicky’s, as if to remind himself that they’re together and free.

“It wasn’t me.” Booker states, walking forward. “She appeared like this.”

That finally makes Andy tear her gaze away. “What?” She asks, clearly confused. “Someone gave her to you like this?”

Booker fidgets. He’s clearly at war within himself, because he keeps running his hands through his hair and eyeing the open bottle of whiskey on the counter. “Aw, fuck it.” Booker says, striding over to where the alcohol is, pouring himself generously, and downing it all in one go. “Quyhn was here.”

For what Nile expected him to say, it clearly wasn’t that. Andy’s eyes widen and turn red as if he slapped her, even Joe finally turning his attention to the man he was clearly fine with ignoring. “What did you say?” Andy asks, her voice low.

Booker squeezes his eyes shut. “I-I didn’t know what to do, whether I should tell you, o-or keep away because of my punishment—”

“Punishment you _deserved_!” Joe shouts, eyes enraged. He gestures to the tied up doctor. “This is exactly why!”

“Yusuf, _per favore_ —”

“No, I’m not going to pretend that any of this is okay!”

“You’ve made yourself very clear, thank you.” Booker snaps, his own anger surfacing. “One hundred years, Joe? Really?”

Joe recoils. “You have the _audacity_ to question that, after what you did?”

“I know I deserve it, alright? I know what I did!” Booker snaps, his hand gripping his whiskey glass rightly. “I know what my actions caused.”

“We were tortured because of you!” Joe shouts.

The anger is palpable, like a mass. Nile flinches when he yells, but stays quiet.

“And we would’ve been tortured for years to come, if we hadn’t escaped!”

“Don’t you think I know that? That I regret what I’ve done?”

“It’s not enough.” Joe snaps, shaking his head. “Regret cannot take back what has been done.”

_“Yusuf—”_

“No, Nicky,” Booker says, putting his hands up. “I want to hear this. I want to hear the thought process in making it so I do not get to be with Andy for her last years on earth. I want him to look me in the eyes and tell me what he’s thinking.”

Joe startles at that and doesn’t respond.

“Not talking now, Joe?” Booker asks, downing another drink. “That’s very unlike—”

“It was _me, Booker.”_

The room stills and quiets.

Nile whips her head in Nicky’s direction, eyes wide.

Joe looks at his love. Andy looks at the floor.

Nicky is standing in the middle of Booker and Joe, his eyes hard. Suddenly, everything that had happened since they got back from the labs made sense. The cold tension. The guilt. The not sleeping.

Nicky chose the punishment.

“Nicky,” Booker breathes, his eyes wide and stunned.

Nicky stands there between them and Nile sees the sniper. She never saw it because he was chained to a bed and they were trying to claw themselves out of the lab, and she had a hard time trying to picture it. He was the one who wanted her to tell him her nightmare. He was the one who said it was destiny they found each other.

There is no warmth in his stare.

“ _Nicolo,”_ Joe starts, his anger filtering out and reaching toward him. “We all—”

“No.” Nicky says firmly, not taking his eyes off of Booker. “I was the one and he should direct it at me. I will not stand here and listen to him come after you.”

“He shouldn’t direct it at anyone. He has no right.” Joe snaps.

“Nicky, you’re the one who decided I wouldn’t be with Andy for the rest of her life?” Booker asks, clearly still not able to believe it.

“Yes.” Nicky answers. “Andy convinced Joe two hundred years was too much and dropped it to thirty. It was I who would not accept.”

Nile looks at Andy, who has her eyes closed and is not reacting. She can’t believe it, she can’t—

“ _You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone.”_ Nicky quietly says. She startles. Nile’s heard it many times before. Her hands instinctively go up to the cross around her neck.

“Nicky—”

“You said when you and Andy were captured,” Nicky speaks over him. “that Joe and I didn’t understand because we always had each other. You had grief, but we had each other.”

“I did.” Booker states, his words careful. “Because it’s true, Nicky.”

“Perhaps it is true.” Nicky muses. “But you had to have known what happened was a possibility. You have seen the folly of man and the lengths they will go for power. And you gave our power up to them even so. You had to have known they would most likely not just take samples. That we would be taken, be captured. The very thing that we have feared.”

He doesn’t respond.

“But that is not why I did not accept thirty years, Booker. That alone is carelessness with life, to which I had hoped you’d learn not to be. But that alone is not it.” Nicky continues. “You said we did not understand your grief. And so you put Yusuf and I in a position where we would.”

The room grows cold.

It’s a weight, it’s a mass, it’s terrible. Nile sees that Joe’s eyes are shining, his hand still out to grab Nicky – for what for, she isn’t sure. Andy even balks at that. Nicky clearly didn’t say his reasoning, just that he simply would not be talked out of it.

“You didn’t know whether everyone would make it through the testing. Whether we would make it through the capture. You continued through it after Sudan. You saw the lengths they would go, and you moved forward anyways. You only stopped when you saw Andy lost her mortality. You did not care to think that you banished Joe and I to lose each other, to be caged forever.”

Booker doesn’t break the gaze.

“Do you hate us so much, Booker?” Nicky asks, for the first time his words not calculated and cold. The hurt, the despair, the pain seeps in his voice. The pain of someone heartbroken and betrayed. A sheen of tears form in his eyes as he looks at the man. “Was our love something you hated that much? You put the love of my life in danger. I had to lie there, unable to move, and watch him die over and over. There was nothing I could do because I was caged. Forced to watch him hurt, him die, him scream.” Nicky closes his eyes, a tear falling down his cheek. “Regret is simply words. Your actions have stilled my heart in ways I’d not thought possible.”

Booker swallows. “Nicky, I—”

“I’d have forgiven your betrayal if it meant only I on the operating table. I cannot forgive you for the pain of Joe. It is too heavy to carry. I always thought I was a strong man, but alas, I do not have the strength for this.”

Nicky straightens and turns away from Booker to Andy. “I would like to do this quickly, please.”

No one says anything.

In a quick movement, Joe steps to Nicky’s side. He grips Nicky’s arm, pulling him close, tilting his head down on his shoulder. Without looking, Nicky reaches over and grips the man, his knuckles growing white like he’s afraid that if he lets go, Joe will be gone. Nile sees it. She sees what Andy meant about it being exhausting, but nice. The devotion and fear.

“Right.” Andy states, turning back toward the doctor.

There’s a clap.

Then another.

Then another.

Nile startles at the noise coming from behind her.

A woman emerges from the shadows, staring at Andy.

It looks as if Andy has seen a ghost. The woman takes a step back. Nile’s never seen her take a step back from anyone before.

The woman is beautiful and calm, her eyes never leaving Andy. Joe and Nicky recoil, Joe muttering something under his breath.

“Well done, Booker.” She states.

Booker startles. “What?”

Joe whips his head in the man’s direction. “What did you do?”

“N-Nothing!” Booker exclaims, clearly as shocked by the woman’s presence as anyone else. “What? I thought—”

“I said we’d be seeing each other again, did I not?”

Quyhn.

Nile feels sheepish how long it took to figure it out. She’s seen the woman in her dreams, heard the stories, but the fact that she was here made it hard to connect the dots. She eyes them with a cool calculation. “I could not have gotten them here without your help.”

Joe lunges at Booker. “You piece of—”

“Now.” Quyhn states quietly.

There’s a shattering of glass and a small device is tossed through the window. It leaks gas, filling up the room. “No, Andy!” Nile exclaims, sprinting over to the woman.

The moment Nile presses her body against Andy’s the explosion breaks out in the room. Nile’s mind goes blank and then comes back.

She definitely just died.

It’s odd, it’s like sleeping.

At one point she’s aware of what’s going on, and then the next she’s waking up, pain in every joint. When she does finally come to, her arm is twisted in a direction that makes her gag and Andy is unconscious a few feet away.

_“Nicolo, destati! Nicolo!”_

Nile can barely register Joe’s panicked voice from the corner of the room. Blinking a few times, she tries to lift her head up, then a pressure shoves it back down.

That’s when she realizes they’re no longer alone. Several clad-in-black figures stand around her, guns in their hands and cold stares. Nile realizes her hands are behind her back as the bones pop into place and she sees the chains wrapped around Joe and Nicky, who still isn’t moving. Booker is slumped in the kitchen, his eyes closed and whiskey bottle shattered.

The entire area smells of booze and blood and Nile can’t put together everything.

“I see things haven’t changed.” Quyhn states, marching over to where Andy is. “So easily, you leave someone to isolation.” Taking her foot to Andy’s side, Quyhn flips the woman around. Andy lets out a wheeze, choking on the gas that is now filtered in the entire room. She frowns when she sees the blood slowly leak from Andy’s side, the gunshot wound that never fully healed now open again. “And I see some things have.”

Shooting a look at the rest of them, Quyhn looks mildly panicked. Her hands quiver, almost crouching as to check on her. Then, she stops herself.

“You played your part well, Dr. Kozak, thank you.” She says, pulling the gag down from Dr. Kozak’s mouth. “Apologies if I was a little rough, I had to make it look convincing.”

“No mind here,” Doctor Kozak breathes once she can easily. “Anything to continue my research.”

Quyhn stands. “Alright, we should probably move them while we can. It’s easier when they’re still healing.”

One of the guards nods and a handful reach over to where Andy is. “No!” Nile shouts. “S-She’s not immortal, please.”

Quyhn hesitates. The guards even pause, looking to her. Nile can see her face go through a multitude of different emotions. Anger. Sadness. Hate. Insanity. It’s heartbreaking to watch, like seeing the collapse of the mind in person.

It’s wiped clean.

“Then what comes next will be painful.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi loves!
> 
> I am so grateful you’re willing to read another story of mine! I just love these characters – they’re just so rich and full. I am just grateful that you allow me to even write / draw for you. I’m so excited to keep this story going, and I hope you’re ready!

CHAPTER TWO

_You Were My Town_

There are three things that are irrefutable truths in that moment.

One: Nicky is angry in a way that he hasn’t felt in years. More than years, really. Lifetimes. He tries his best to remain calm in the face of anger, but it’s overtaking him like a force of his own. Nicky thought that he would have time. That the image of Joe strapped against the bed, bleeding and confused, would slowly filter out like sand in an hourglass. He would have time to let go of his rage, to let go of the betrayal felt when Booker revealed his plan. He can still feel the needles against his skin, the cries of Joe to his left, the smell of antiseptic in the air.

Nicky got none of that, instead being forced to confront Booker a mere week after everything. He felt his anger build up again, like a mass that was too terrifying for him to understand. It’s moments like this where he would need to get away for a while, calming himself with Joe’s touch. It was a nice memory. It was a nice thought. Nicky believed it, he truly did. But in the shitty apartment in France, he wasn’t able to release it. Every time he looked at Booker, his fear and rage came back stronger than before.

Two: he wants to leave desperately.

There’s something that is making his senses go haywire. The hair on the back of his neck stands on end, a sign that he should take Joe and run. He almost considers it, just grabbing Joe’s hand and leaving, but he cannot stop looking at Booker and trying to understand. Understand how someone he loved so deeply could do something so painful. Nicky has lived many years, and he thinks he’s reached a point where he can’t be surprised by the vanity of man.

Then this happens.

Three: he’s been blown up.

The world was there and then it wasn’t and then it was back.

He stood in between Joe and Booker, his anger growing and frustration spilling over. He’s only a few paces away from Booker, Joe an arm reach away. Then, there’s a shout, a crash of a window and a small projectile lands at his feet, launched in the middle of the room. Nicky looks down at the device at his toes, the gas spilling out. He has a few thoughts before he realizes what’s truly happening – both inappropriate. One about Booker and one about Joe, both not something he’d say aloud, but in different ways.

Then there’s an explosion and darkness.

When he comes to, he feels nothing and everything.

He’s definitely died.

It’s like he can’t quite use his hands and feet, but somehow people are forcing him to use them and it’s painful. It’s like he’s outside his body, watching it be dragged about as it heals. That’s when he realizes one final truth:

He’s regrowing limbs.

Nicky’s never been blown up before. Honestly, no one but Booker has. He was drunkenly walking in a field and then suddenly he wasn’t. It took him two whole days to regrow his leg, and even longer to feel normal. It was gruesome and terrible, Nicky remembering he was thankful it never has happened to him. Now, he wonders if he’s given Booker enough credit.

Absently he thinks people are yelling at him as he’s dragged down the street, catching sight of his arm that is clinging to itself, the skin scraped apart. It’s grotesque and he has to look away. The problem is that he doesn’t have two days to regrow, and even less time to get his wits about him. Except all he can think of is the pain that envelops his body and the question of where Joe is.

He tilts his head around, trying to see. There are so many soldiers in black, carrying weapons and bodies. That’s when Nicky finally comes back into the world, the sounds and feelings hitting him like bricks. He thinks someone’s yelling, and even more so they’re yelling his name. Nicky zeroes in on it and hears the voice of his love, a grounding force. Joe was his lighthouse in the darkness, pulling him to shore when he was lost at sea.

When he’s fully aware of his surroundings, he realizes that they’ve all been shoved in a van. The kind of nondescript ones that makes him feel like he’s in a bad movie. He tries his best not to groan, but his entire body is yelling at him and he’s having a hard time focusing on anything but that.

_“Wake up, please!”_ He finally hears, the frantic Italian mooring him to this work. _“Nicolo, Nicolo, destati!”_

Nicky grunts. “I’m here. I’m awake.”

He can hear Joe’s breath from across the van. Joe mutters a quick prayer that makes Nicky smile and he opens his eyes.

Then, he wonders if he should just close them again.

Andy is pressed against the wall, pissed and wild, blood dripping from her forehead. “Andy,” he chokes, his eyes rolling in the back of his head a bit when he shifts. “Andy, are you okay?”

Andy tilts her head. “Are you really in a place where you can be asking that?” She asks, her words a little slow and dazed.

“Tell me,” he says, his face pressed to the ground, because it seems to be the only thing to keep the world from spinning.

“Yes, I’m fine.”

“Nile, is she telling the truth?”

“I don’t want to get in the middle of this—”

_“Nile.”_

“I think she has some broken ribs. I’m a little worried about a concussion.”

“Can we get a doctor?” Nicky asks, squeezing his eyes shut. He thinks that maybe if he talks through the pain, it’ll settle the world that’s spinning on its axis. “Please, we need—” He lets out a pain noise when he feels his shin reach out to his foot, skin knitting down.

“You want to ask that again?” Andy asks, words unimpressed. “Or do you want to focus on regrowing your spleen?”

“You know, medically you can live without a spleen.” Nicky offers, and he hears Joe’s faint laughter. “You cannot live without a head.”

“Head’s still connected. I can’t say the same about your arm.”

As if he needs reminding.

Nicky remains pressed to the ground, feeling the cool metal on his skin. God, how he wishes he was back in the safehouse. He had plans to show Nile how to make gnocchi and wanted to be with Joe in a way they hadn’t in days. Their bodies were tired, but also wanting and in need to be close to each other. If he didn’t feel like he was on fire, he’d rip out the throat of anyone who got in his way now.

Except he is on fire.

“Been a while since I’ve seen this.”

Nicky didn’t realize Quyhn was in the van. When her cool voice fills his ears, Nicky tries not to react. Except she had them all. She had them all in her own coffin, ready to drown them for years to come. Nicky never felt right, giving up on her, but the years past and the pain drifted away. He is ashamed, but he keeps his eyes closed because he can’t bare to look at her.

Then, her presence is next to him. He’s certain Joe shouts, there’s some noise, and his head is yanked up from where it is on the floor. Nicky tries not cry out, but it’s hard, when his entire back seems to be contorted. “Does it hurt to regrow? I’ll admit, I’ve been underwater for so long, I don’t know how anything else feels.”

Nicky knows she’s not really asking, but a part of him wants to answer. “Let him go!” Joe shouts from the corner of the van and god, he truly loves that man. It gives him something to focus on when everything is spinning.

Quyhn is there, in front of his face, and he isn’t sure if it’s a blessing or a curse. He finds himself searching in her eyes, waiting for answer to question she never asked. He looks at her, unflinching. “You will not get what you want.”

Quyhn recoils at that, looking at Nicky as if he’s spoken a different language. Nicky doesn’t blink, doesn’t move – really, because he can’t because stitching an entire arm together is way more work than he ever imagined – but because he has to. “What do you know of what I want?” She snarls at him, her fingers tightening around his hair.

“Often what we want is misplaced. There is no honor among revenge.”

Quyhn lets out an animalistic growl, tossing his head down so it all but smashes against the ground of the van. Nicky’s nose crashes against the metal with a crunch and he’s tasting blood. Before he can register what’s happening, Quyhn is standing over Joe, a gun in her hand. He notices it’s a little shaky, the woman clearly not used to modern weaponry. “And if I pulled the trigger? Would you not feel the need for revenge?”

Nicky feels a sheen of anger that he rarely does. More than Booker, more than anything he’s felt in a while. Joe sits on the ground of the van, startled and confused in an adorable way as he looks at the barrel of the gun. “Oh Nicky, you think that you can fool me like you do everyone else? You are not meek and you are not worthy of underestimation.”

She pulls the trigger.

Nicky lets out a pained howl as he tries to get up, but his arms still aren’t cooperating. Joe slumps forward, blood trickling from his head from the bullet and Nicky wants nothing more than to rip her apart in that moment. It’s violent and cruel and he hates this part of himself. The part that is vicious, that is vindictive. But as Joe says, _he’s all and he’s more_.

Nicky is sending a stream of swears at her that he knows she can understand, picking up particularly sharp words in Vietnamese during their time together. When they were in the best of times, the two would easily switch between languages, cooking and speaking about things he never thought he’d have someone to do so with. Except with Joe’s still body yards away and limbs that refused to cooperate, he wants to destroy everything. It’s a monster within him – the same monster that exiled Booker and easily assassinated anyone in his path.

The monster that was born in the Crusades.

The monster he’s never been able to stifle entirely.

Joe sucks in a breath, his body jerking forward. Nicky watches the bullet dig its way out of his head, clinking to the ground. “You will pay for that.” Nicky utters, words low and dangerous.

“We pay for everything.” Is the response.

Even in his anger, he supposes this is true.

Then, in a rush of pain and movement, he can feel his fingers again. He lets out a strangled howl, trying to stifle it behind his teeth, seeing stars. Curling his face against the ground, Nicky brings his arm up to view, the muscle and bone jutting out for everyone to see. It’s nauseating, excruciating, and he has to look away. Quyhn crouches in front of Andy, the woman staring into his leader’s soul. “How does it feel, Andromedache, to have everyone you love chained?”

Andy doesn’t say anything. Her eyes are red and jaw clenched, but she’s still and firm like she always is. Nicky’s always admired that about her. That even in the worst bit of danger, she doesn’t crack. Eyes flitting toward the edge of the van, he sees Joe sit up, blinking a few times. His eyes are wide and confused in the way that he always looks after he comes back to life. He searches until he finds Nicky’s eyes, letting out a shuddering breath once he does so. Nicky almost cries he’s so relieved to see his love alert. He wishes his limbs were working, he wishes Joe wasn’t chained away. It was too far.

Too far.

“Andromedache, this is how it was always going to end, wasn’t it?” Quyhn asks, leaning closer. “Your time always comes.”

“As will yours.”

Nicky says the words before he can stop himself. Joe has always told him that while he may the more vocal one, Nicky had a tendency to tell people what they didn’t want to hear. _“I love your sincere heart, my love.”_ Joe would say. _“But humans are not as evolved as you and I.”_ Nicky would laugh into his chest and tell him that he’s helping them evolve. _“Of course you are, Nicolo. But perhaps they’re not ready for you.”_

Quyhn turns to him. “Always preaching,” she breathes.

Nicky’s eyes track her, even when his limbs not fully functioning. She crouches down, pulling his hand forward. A shot of pain ricochet’s through his body and he sucks in a breath. Her fingers trace where the muscle is stitching back together and Nicky tries to think of something else.

“You know, I’ve waited. The water filling my lungs again and again. You know what the only thing that got me through the first bit?” Quyhn turns to Andy. “I thought, Andromedache will never give up. We promised each other forever. You said we’d be together always. And then, something shifted. Time melted away. Everything that I thought was real was gone. All that was real was water. Iron. And one death after another, after another. Then I realized something.”

Quyhn’s head tilts. “We weren’t the family you claimed we’d be. How did you convince them all you were? Because the first thing I found out when I got out wasn’t that you were still searching. It was that you were _not_.”

Her eyes water, and Nicky can see everything. The deaths, the insanity. It’s hard for him to look at the woman and separate the person he knew. Quyhn, who sang soft lullabies when she watched the fire in the woods. The woman who sewed all the patches on his clothes, until she got fed up and then taught him how to gingerly fix his shirts. They ripped so many times after death, he was thrilled for the lesson. After they lost her, he carefully stitched everything back together. His gentle hands stitched everything for the people he loved.

“Can you imagine?” She asks. “The only thing that kept you sane ended up being a lie. That everyone you thought were coming back to you just… gave up.”

Her voice wavers. Nicky props himself up as much as he can as he’s still healing and for a small moment, he sees his friend. His sister. His family. Her eyes are watering and he reminds himself of what they lost. Nicky thinks of God often. He thinks of how his entire life wrapped around what he thought God wanted. Then he thinks of what God gave him. Absolution. Purpose. Eternity.

Joe.

Nicky wonders what he would do if he was separated from Joe. If he was forced to be away from the man he loved. Nicky didn’t like being away from Joe for any amount of time, but he doesn’t know what he’d do for a length of time. The longest he’d ever been away from him was a week back in 1652 when they were in a shipwreck that had them both moored on different islands in an archipelago. Nicky thought it was the closest he’s ever been to madness. Wandering around, screaming his name until he can’t speak anymore. His throat was raw, his feet bloody.

When he found Joe, it was like seeing the sun after a heavy rain.

The way his eyes crinkled as his smile and everything about him lit up. It was like breathing after being killed for the first time, completely overwhelming and sharp. The first time he kissed him since the separation, it was frantic and graceless. Even after seven days, it was as if he found God again. He spent the next few days exploring every part of his body, memorizing it for any time they would be separated again.

Nicky is brought back to the world when his leg snaps back. He stifles a shout, his fingers dragging against the ground.

Quyhn stands, the whispers of the woman he once knew gone. “Let’s get them prepped. Different testing rooms. They’re stronger together.”

Dr. Kozak emerges from the shadows, the bruises still blooming on his face. “Divide and conquer.”

***

It’s the first time she’s been alone in a while.

Even in the military, she was constantly surrounded by people. Her tent had three other women in it, and at home she had a brother who she shared a room with. On base, she was never alone – in the shower, when sleeping, over the comms. Nile got used to it, having people around. It annoyed her – she wanted quiet, she wanted privacy.

Now?

“Nile, we will find you!” Nicky shouts, jerking his head over his shoulder, eyes wild in that way when someone he loves is in danger. “J-Just—”

“Yes, Nile!” Joe shouts as multiple armed guards wrench his arms. He’s doing his best to look at her, all of the guards twisting his arms further. “We’re here!”

She believes them.

They’re trying their best, but there’s too many guards and their hands are behind their backs. Her gaze darts around and she finds Andy, who is wincing as she’s dragged down the hall. Her eyes are firm and dark, linking with hers. She stills.

Nile’s afraid.

Sure, she can’t die, but she’s twenty-five years old. She doesn’t have the hundreds of years the others do. All she has is shitty POW training and the voice of the monotonous instructor saying to turn her mind off. She doesn’t have the years of desensitization the others have. All she has is an immortal body and a bright heart, and neither of those will protect her from what’s happening.

Andy nods at her, Nile able to see the worry in her eyes. There’s still blood leaking from her head and her hand is clamped against her side. Andy’s worrying.

That’s new.

It’s not comforting.

She doesn’t say anything when they drag her further away from everyone. “Not her!” Booker shouts, struggling and trying his best to escape. “Quyhn, please! She’s new, she’s—”

“New genetics,” Dr. Kozak mutters, bringing her head toward Nile. She makes sure there’s a wide birth, so Nile can’t do anything. Bite her, headbutt her, but she’s too far. “I need to get more information on her. Make sure she’s prepped ASAP.”

“No!” Booker shouts, yanking against the hands holding him. “No, Nile!”

Nile is dragged away. When the metal door slams behind her, her breath catches.

She’s alone.

For the first time since she can remember, she’s entirely alone. Letting out a shaky breath, she doesn’t resist when they strap her down. There are noises that are making her heart race and mind wander. There’s a handful of guards in the room, everyone with more guns than her soldiers in Afghanistan. “Prep her right now,” Dr. Kozak says, bursting through the door and not even registering her as a human. The woman quickly pulls her gloves on, nodding to a lab assistant.

Nile wishes Andy was here. Andy would know what to say, what to do. She would tilt her head in that way that makes her feel calm and wanted all at the same time. Except Andy wasn’t there – neither was Joe, Nicky, or Booker. She feels so alone.

“You were the reason Merrick Labs failed.” Dr. Kozak states, wiping down a few needles. Nile doesn’t respond, trying not to show any expression.

It’s what they trained her.

If you’re a prisoner of war, they tell you not to think of anything important to you. You don’t want to sully any memory that you may find important. They tell you to think of something you’re indifferent about – not something you hate. Because you’re already in pain, you don’t need more. But something like coffee table books for the absent mind.

She thinks of this street in Chicago she used to go to on her way to the grocery store. It was an unassuming street. There was one house she liked to look at because they had a swing in their front yard. Nile always looked at it. It was one of the simple ones with a piece of wood and rope attached to it. She remembers thinking it was nice. Simple, but sturdy.

Nile thinks of the swing. She thinks of the swing as the needle is injected of her skin. When her body tries to reject it.

The swing.

Back and forth. Back and forth.

***

“I will kill you!”

He shouts it in English. In Arabic. In Italian, in Spanish, in Greek, in Vietnamese. Joe runs through every language he can think of, over and over, screaming until his throat runs raw. Joe wonders if he’s even making any noise, because everything’s so loud and quiet at the same time.

He’s lying on a bed, strapped down. He feels like a caged animal, everything is wrong. _Everything_. He’s strapped down, he doesn’t know where anyone is, Nicky is nowhere in sight.

Nicky.

Joe feels like he’s vibrating out of his skin. This was everything he had ever feared. From the moment that he decided that he wanted to put down his sword and take up Nicky’s hand, this was his greatest fear. The two of them separated, in pain, and completely alone.

Him, completely alone.

Joe’s never known it.

He’s never felt the true despair and loneliness, because he had his family growing up, their faces off like a distant memory. Then he had his fellow soldiers.

Then he had Nicky.

He had Nicky when he hated him, and more importantly he had Nicky when he loved him.

Joe sucks in a breath, the sound of it monumental in the room where he’s by himself.

His mind wanders to a memory that he treasured so close to his heart. The first time that Nicky let himself be held, in a cave on the outskirts of Denmark, hundreds of years ago.

They had a very strained relationship filled with so much care. Joe could never quite read him, he often would scream at him in Arabic, telling him to say something, to explain something. He needed to know what was going on in Nicky’s head, the man so stoic and calm. Then, one night, he began to see cracks. Then another, the man broke.

_They had been fighting all day._

_It was the terrible sort of battle where it was just Joe, Nicky, and their swords, dying over and over again as the promise of rescuing the children were in the back of their minds. Joe could barely think every time he watched Nicky collapse on the ground again, his breath stopping. Just as his own, he would reanimate, sucking in oxygen with a sharp howl, only to grab his blade as soon as he was conscious._

_They did this for a while – Joe thinks it was only fifteen minutes, but it truly felt like fifteen lifetimes had passed. In fact, maybe they did, Joe lost track of how many times they died. He considered telling Nicky this was a lost cause, that maybe the two of them should regroup and come up with a new plan. He even tried yelling across the hall in his Italian that was getting better by the day, “Nicolo, we need to retreat!”_

_If Nicky heard him, he didn’t show it._

_Nicky would simply come back to life, grab his sword, and try again._

_It was almost inspiring how much he tried to save the kids._

_It’s too bad it was for nothing._

_Joe knows that there’s no way they could’ve known, but he remembers smelling the blood before seeing it._

_When they burst through the door of the cellar, Joe could see a small hand lying on the concrete. “Nicolo, no,” he tried to stop him, but Nicky was already out of arm’s reach._

_He’ll never forget the way Nicky stilled._

_It was as if he was carved out of marble. Joe always thought Nicky should be carved for art, constantly sketching his jaw on the page of his notebook without the man noticing. But this, this was like a waking nightmare._

_Nicky stepped over the little limbs, the blood staining the floor. If the flies were any indication, they had been dead for a few days. All of it, for nothing._

_He remembers the way Nicky stood in the middle of the room, with the blood and stench of death. His hand hanging at his side, his broadsword touching the ground. “Nicolo,” Joe finally musters the courage to say after a few minutes. “Nicolo, I—”_

_He isn’t sure if Nicky heard him, because time passes._

_It passes as it always does._

_Except it doesn’t, it slows and then stops._

_Joe opens his mouth to say something again, and then Nicky makes a sound._

_Not a sound. An animalistic cry. A shout, a howl, something that runs deep into Joe’s bones. Nicky swings his hands up, his sword high. Joe isn’t sure what he’s going to do, then the sword comes down._

_The metal crashes against brick in an awful sound, the blade digging deep._

_His shoulders hunch. He falls to him knees._

_“Nicolo,” Joe offers tentatively when he doesn’t move. “Nico—”_

_Reaching out a tentative hand, Joe steps closer. He’s been on the receiving end of Nicky’s sword before and while he’ll likely recover, it’s never pleasant. Fingers hovering, Joe gently sets his hand down on Nicky’s shoulder. “Nicolo, I-I—” Usually he knows what to say. Words have always come easy to him, but he doesn’t know. “I’m so sorry, Nicolo. Peace, dear heart.”_

_Then, Nicky does something that he’s never done before._

_He brings his own hand up, away from his sword, and places it over Joe’s. He squeezes it tightly, as if Joe’s a lifeline. Joe isn’t sure what to do. Nicky has never touched him willingly like this before. Sure, after particularly bad fights, he would grab Joe’s shoulder and survey him, making sure his body healed, but then he would let go as quickly as he got this answer._

_Standing, Nicky keeps his hand on Joe’s. Without a word, he leads the man out._

_Nicky doesn’t let go._

_Joe isn’t sure what to do. He’s never experienced this before. He is overflowing with questions and concern, but instead allows himself to be lead through the carnage that they just made._

_Nicky doesn’t let go of him until they get to a small, abandoned shack they were staying in until someone noticed. The windows were broken and there was a rat infestation, but no one thought to look there. He doesn’t let go of Joe then, either._

_Then, he turns._

_“I-I—” Nicky starts, the words catching and pained. “I’m tired, Yusuf.”_

_Joe doesn’t say anything._

_“I’m tired of fighting.”_

_Joe startles at that. “Nicolo—”_

_“I’m tired of fighting this.”_

_Joe hesitates. “This?”_

_“This.”_

_In a quick movement, Nicky stands and turns around. Cupping the side of his face, Nicky says quietly, “The world is terrible. I thought that I would find God’s purpose, and I am lost. The only thing that makes sense now… is you.”_

_Bringing his hand up, the sword clatters to the floor. Joe is so startled, he doesn’t move. He’s a man of action, a man of words, and he’s at a loss for everything. Nicky dips his head closer, his nose brushing against Joe’s. He hesitates, as if his grandeur filters out of him._

_So Joe goes the rest of the way_.

Joe treasures that memory. It’s tucked inside his brain for safe keeping, safe and precious. He’s never told anyone, and is certain Nicky hasn’t either. People have asked both when they got together and what it was like, but Joe likes that they have one story that’s entirely theirs. No one will know the cellar, the sword and the kiss. That will be theirs. Just like they are each others’.

The door swings open, Joe startling.

Quyhn marches inside. Joe’s still not quite used to seeing the woman in modern clothes, but he supposes as is life. Joe wants to pull against the ropes, scream at her, but he hears Nicky’s voice in his head. _“Not now, my love. Not yet.”_

So he listens. Nicky is usually right about this sort of thing.

“Yusuf,” Quyhn states, her heels clicking against the granite ground. She moves like she used to, slyly and carefully. Intentional. She moves the way she did in battle, like every movement was thought three steps again. It’s as if she was playing a game of chess with everyone on the planet. “I had always hoped we would meet again.”

“As did I.” Joe says, choosing his words carefully, but also there is truth. Truth behind the words.

She was his sister. He loved her so much. They fell asleep under the stars and saved each other.

Quyhn seems thrown by the intimacy of the response. Enough so that she stops walking toward him. “Do you understand what has been done, Yusuf?”

Joe hesitates. He doesn’t want to say the wrong thing, but he’s never been good at this sort of thing. Sure, Nicky has always said he has the soul of poets of the world and Booker would make fun of the way he would study before he would go to a country where he didn’t speak the language. That way, he can talk and talk and talk.

He’s afraid to talk.

Anything against Quyhn can be used as a weapon.

“I understand a lot of things, Quyhn. I think you’ll need to be more specific.”

Quyhn’s mouth turns up. “I see Nicky has rubbed off on you. Five hundred years ago, you would just screamed ‘fuck you’ and been on your merry way.”

“I would love to be on my merry way. Mind if you untie me then?”

Quyhn laughs. “I remember this Yusuf. Always able to make people smile.” Her mouth turns down. The coolness of the sea washes over her, he can see it. He can see the iron coffin, he can see the deaths. More than any of them could imagine. “None of this funny, though.”

She’s baiting him.

He knows it. He wants to take it, he wants to scream. So he takes a breath, sends a quick prayer to whoever’s listening, and says calmly, “Where’s Nicky?”

She snorts. “Funny again.”

“How is that funny?” Joe responds, words dark.

“He asked the same thing. The only thing he’s saying right now. Very one track mind, that one.”

“You wouldn’t begin to understand Nicky’s mind.”

She thinks about this. “I suppose you’re right. But then again, I don’t really need to know what’s going on in either of your minds to do what comes next.”

She runs her fingers across the instruments on the table next to him. Joe swallows.

He was just here. It was such a short amount of time ago. They barely had time to recover. Booker was exiled, they showered. He held Nicky tighter that Nicky and Nicky checked to make sure his gun was loaded five times before he even shut his eyes. It was beautiful and terrifying.

“What will it take Quyhn?” He asks, a somber question for a somber moment.

She doesn’t ask for him to clarify.

Her fingers hover over the instruments.

“Everything.”

***

Andy’s sick of this shit.

She’s genuinely sick of this shit.

She has been on this earth for too long, she’s seen too many horrific things, she’s seen people at their worst. _She_ has been at her worst. All she thinks of is their faces. Joe, Nicky, Booker… Nile. She was ready for it to be over, she was ready for it to _all_ be over.

But not like this.

Not like this, chained to a bed with her family scattered and tortured.

But it’s a Quyhn.

She saw the woman’s face when she closed her eyes and felt the brush of her hand against her cheek in the wind. Andy could never forget, as much as she wanted to. Time took so much and it just went on, and on, and on. It was cruel. Andy used to think that it was a gift. Then, she thought it was a curse. Then, she decided it was responsibility. A responsibility no one asked for, but they were given all the same.

The pain her abdomen is fierce and she’s certain Nile was right – she definitely has a concussion. Andy isn’t used to the dizzying side effect of being human, nor does she particularly care for it. Andy always thought there would be a sense of relief that came with dying, but she feels none of that. She feels anxious, like at any moment her heart could stop. She supposes it could.

But it pisses her off on principle.

Her hands are tied to the bed in a pretty proficient way, but she can’t help but notice there’s a fray on one the wrappings. A fray, as innocent as a fray can be.

Used.

Andy smirks to herself.

Completely amateur.

She twists her hand around, feeling her wrist creek. It’s going to painful. Even worse, it’s going to take a while to heal. Shoving her thumb in her palm, she starts to twist.

It reminds her of that day in the cell with Quyhn. Promising her that they would have forever, and knowing that she would never be able to fulfill it. Andy twists her fingers, her thumb popping.

Then she stops.

A cold, desperate, selfish thought reaches her.

She could… stay.

She could stay and spend the rest of her life trying to understand what happened. Unraveling the Quyhn who was submerged under water and the Quyhn who emerged. She could spend the rest of her long life doing everything she could to make the woman understand how her bones ache with her loss, to the point where she feels like she might shatter at any moment.

This time, Andy could stay.

It’s a beautiful thought.

However, like most beautiful thoughts she’s discovered, it’s not real.

Because it’s not just her anymore. She sees Joe’s face, Nicky and Booker’s… Nile. Jesus, Nile. She’s such a baby in this world and yet is thrown in this because of their bullshit. She doesn’t deserve it.

Andy knows it’s not really an option to stay. There’s too many people she owes her life to, and once again, she’ll have to leave Quyhn. It’s unfair and cruel, but if Booker were here, he would say, _“Haven’t you heard, boss?”_ while pouring whisky in whatever she’s drinking. _“The world has always been unfair and cruel. You just have seen more of it.”_

With a quick motion, Andy snaps her thumb. She tries not to flinch, but she can’t help it. It hurts and it it hurts _badly_ , and the pain isn’t going away. It’s so annoying. With a little more wiggling, she’s able to pinch the frayed cuff in her fingers, ripping it. Over and over again, she rips and rips.

Andy isn’t sure how long she is at it. She can hear a faint yelling from the other rooms and it’s the only reasons she doesn’t stop. The pads of her fingers are raw and red, close to bleeding. But she has to get out. She will not spend the rest of her life in a cage. Even if she deserves it, even if Quyhn deserves her vengeance. It’s selfish, true. She does deserve purgatory after it all. But she’s always been a woman of action.

She will not die lying down, with her family chained.

There’s a loud ripping sound and the cuff is nothing more than a leather strip and a chain. Andy pulls her broken hand out easily, quickly moving to the next. She continues to look around for anyone to notice, but she didn’t have to wait long. A siren and flashing red light illuminates overhead and she startles.

There’s several cameras in the room.

“Fuck!” She shouts, trying to get her hand out faster. Andy isn’t sure why she thought she wouldn’t be surveyed closely, but it’s very inconvenient.

Pulling her hands out, she quickly leaps up form the bed, searching the room quickly. There isn’t much in the room in regards to weapons, which, she thinks absently, is probably intentional. All there are is a few instruments that looks like they’re from a horror film, and a silver tray. Well, creative problems call for creative solutions.

The door swings open and Andy throws the sharpest instrument in her hand. Fortunately her aim is spot on, the scalpel digging into the first guard’s chest. A few shots are thrown in her direction, but she holds the tray up and bullets ricochet. As soon as she’s close enough, she swings the tray against the guard’s head, her hand reaching to his belt and pulling his small handgun. With a swift motion, she places it against his chest and fires a few rounds, the man crumbling to the ground.

Andy makes quick work of it, wonder what part of six thousand years old do these people not understand. She knows more will be coming, and even more will be sent to the others’ room, but she doesn’t care.

Kicking down any door that looks suspicious – i.e. all of them – Andy is startled when the first room with a figure is Booker. He’s alone, tied down, and staring. “I expected more of a welcome.” Andy admits, running over to where his hands are tied.

“Maybe they think that I’d be the last person you’d come for.” Booker offers, Andy very aware of the bitterness in his voice.

She doesn’t have time for it. As soon as he’s untied, she hands him a spare rifle, Book always better with the multi-round weapons. He always said he didn’t have time to particular, always with Nicky in view as Nicky cleaned his sniper rifle and smirked. Booker takes it, checking the clip. “You okay, boss?” He asks, surveying her.

Andy lifts up a hand, revealing her broken fingers. “You know, there are some things I’m gonna miss.”

Booker snorts. “Yeah, well, that was self-inflicted so I don’t feel sorry for you.”

Andy can’t help but grin at him. He was her person she could be the most sardonic with. Joe had too much joy for life and people, and Nicky was far too thoughtful. Nile was too new.

It left Booker, the man she could drink with, the man she would complain with, and the man she would die for.

“I don’t feel sorry for you either.” Andy states, the subtext there. Booker’s smile falters a bit, but when she claps him on the shoulder with a snort, he rolls his eyes.

“Let’s go.” Booker says, taking the lead, as if he was a shield. “I can’t wait to rescue Joe so he can kill me.”

“You know, it’ll probably be Nicky this time.”

“Yeah, how have we not talked about that, that was a curveball.”

“Book, when could we have possibly discussed this?”

He shrugs. “We could’ve found time.”

_“Quel idiot.”_ Andy mutters under her breath just loud enough for Booker to hear. She can his huff of a laugh.

It goes like most missions they’ve had – each of them falling into place having fought together for years. Their odds got better the more people they collected. Nile was mid-procedure and Booker didn’t hesitate. Every figure around her was dead in seconds. Nile, with her wide eyes and blood on her face, gapes at them like she couldn’t believe it.

“Gotta have a little faith, kid.” Booker snorts when he helps her out of the restraints, eyeing the way her skin is stitching itself together and the blood that drips on the floor.

“That’s real rich, coming from you.” Nile says back, but there’s really no heat in it.

“Haven’t you heard?” Andy says, keeping an eye on the door. “Booker’s the religious one of the group.”

Nile looks as if she is shocked, then makes a face. “Nice try.”

Booker wags a finger at her. “You believed her for a second.”

“Why would I expect Andy to make a joke right now?”

“What are you talking about?” Andy says, flatly. “I’m hilarious.”

“She is.” Booker agrees.

“Shouldn’t we be focusing?”

It doesn’t take them long to find Joe, and even less to find Nicky. Once Joe was free, no guard stood a chance until he was in Nicky’s room, holding his hand softly, a juxtaposition from the bodies littering the floor.

“No time for romances.” Andy utters when Nicky hops off the table. She looks at the man, the sight of his broken body one she’d like to forget. If Joe’s face is any indication, he feels the same. “You good?”

Nicky cracks his neck and rolls his shoulders, Andy frowning at the pops along the way. “All good, boss.”

Andy isn’t sure she believes him. She knows Joe doesn’t, but they really don’t have time for anything other than a quick check.

“Uh, we have a problem.” Booker calls, peering out the door.

“As opposed to this otherwise carefree day?” Nile asks behind him, causing Joe to give a shout of laughter. The man walks over to Nile and places a hand on her shoulder, his eyes fond.

“They’ve activated the security protocols.”

“What does that _mean_ , Book—oh.”

Andy makes her way to the door and sees. They definitely have a problem. Walls of steel are rolling down the windows, creaking until they hit the end.

They’re trapped in an iron coffin.

“This is because you broke through a window with an assault rifle.” Nile says to Joe, who grins.

“No regrets.”

“I have a few regrets.” Booker offers, swearing under his breath.

“As you should.”

“Joe, now’s not the time.”

“Why does everyone—”

“I think I can override it, I just need to get to the main control center.” Booker speaks over him. “I can go – you guys still make your way down. By the time you get to the door, I should have it overridden.”

“Then you can launch yourself out the building like Nile did. We’ll scrape you off the ground.”

“Jumping out of windows shouldn’t be your go to.” Nile offers. “Nicky, you have to agree with me on this.”

Nicky shrugs. “His plans always work.”

“Impossible.”

“Refocus.” Andy states, her eyes on Booker.

She knows that look.

He’s having a hard time keeping her gaze and his hand is trembling slightly.

He’s not going to make it out.

He knows it.

Andy knows it.

Maybe this is what he thinks he deserves, what he thinks will make it right. She catches his gaze flit to Nicky, Andy still able to hear the shock and pain from the declaration. Maybe it was more painful that it was Nicky, she doesn’t know. Pain has levels, but Booker always seemed closer with Joe. It’s not particularly easy to taunt Nicky because he doesn’t react and doesn’t play along. Joe will cut you to an inch of you life with his worlds, laughing freely the entire way.

She nods.

Booker nods back.

She can see the relief in his face. His eyes are screaming _thank you, thank you for letting me do this._

As the group heads out, she doesn’t know if she made the right choice.

***

To be fair, Nicky’s been in worse situations.

None are coming to mind, but he knows he has.

They file out of the room quietly, their steps in line with one another. Nicky isn’t sure why he does it, but he turns to see where Booker is still at the door, his body still.

That’s when things don’t make a terrible amount of sense.

“Nicolo, hurry.” Joe says from ahead of him, and Nicky picks up the pace. Except he can’t shake a feeling that something isn’t entirely right. The feeling when he’s ready for a job to go sideways. When he’s standing in the dark of night, rifle in hand.

Then, he pauses one last time.

Booker isn’t making it out.

He feels foolish that it took him that long to make this conclusion, but to be fair, he’s been distracted. The group gets further and further away, their steps leading them away. Joe, further away.

Nicky stands, not moving, the building dark with the iron sidings on the windows.

His anger is a presence. It’s a scary, vicious thing. It’s what caused him to kill Joe over and over again, what caused him to kill Joe’s people. It’s what makes him snap whenever Joe or any of his family is injured. He tries so hard to remain calm, but there are moments when it fails.

He stands in the middle, to routes.

One to safety, but bitterness.

The other…

_You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone._

His words of scripture to Booker ring in his head.

_“Figlio di puttana,”_ he mutters under his breath, running down the hallway after Booker.

By the time he finds him, he shown that he made the right call. Booker is trying to fight his way through a sea of guards, his gun out. Settling himself down on the ground at the best angle he can manage, Nicky fires off four shots, and four bodies collapse to the ground.

Booker startles, whirling around. Nicky can see the expression of full shock on his face when the man moves closer. “Nicky, what the fuck are you doing?”

“You can’t do what you need and protect yourself at the same time.” Nicky says calmly, unable to take the edge out of his voice. “You work, I will make sure you can.”

“Nicky, you shouldn’t be here, I wasn’t—” he cuts himself off.

So, his suspicions were correct.

“You should work quickly.” He states, settling down by the end of the hall.

Booker doesn’t move right away. Nicky can feel his stare on his back, Nicky pointing his gun down the hall.

Nicky’s shaking a bit. Dangerous decisions with his conscious were always the most difficult. He one expressed this dark truth to Joe one night when they were on a boat in Greece, as if it was a reason that he was a monster. _“And yet you do them anyway, my love.”_ Joe had responded, kidding the bridge of his nose. _“It’s one of the many reasons I love you.”_

Joe’s love was a gift from God. And like godly gifts, Nicky wonders if he’ll forgive him for staying behind.

***

“Bastard better hurry up,” Joe mutters under his breath when they’re at the front. They’re surrounded by iron and darkness. It’s a sobering and cold experience. He knows it’s not possible, but it’s like he can hear the water around them, dragging them deeper and deeper into the ocean. He frowns when he doesn’t hear Nicky telling him that now’s not the time.

In fact, a part of him feels colder, like something is pulling him back into the building. He stumbles a bit, looking around. “Nicky?” He calls, the presence of the man who is moon in darkness missing.

No wonder it is so dark in the lobby.

“Nicky!”

“Joe, stop yelling,” Andy hisses.

“Nicky’s not here,” Joe says, his voice hitching. He turns, looking around the room. “N-Nicky’s not here.”

Andy startles at that. Her hand drops and she catches Nile’s expression. “He’s not—”

There’s a loud, awful sound of metal on metal and the iron sheets start to ascend, slowly grinding up further. Joe instinctively brings his gun up, but the light starts to peak out from under the metal as it lifts. “I-I need to go get him,” Joe states, whirling toward the door. “I need—”

There’s an explosion above their heads and firing that is louder than any sense he can find. “Nicky,” he breathes.

Joe is afraid.

A large portion of his life is being afraid, he finds. Afraid because his soul is tied to another, his life and happiness is entire connected to Nicky’s. The two of them have barely been apart since they found each other, always step in step. After Merrick, he had dreams of the places they’d go, of the work they’d show Nile. The pain of the labs was there, but as Nicky liked to say, _there’s always pain in the world. It is our job to find the good._ Joe often wonders if the Catholic Church would’ve made him a saint if he’d stayed in the perish.

Probably not.

Except he’s standing here and Nicky’s nowhere to be found and his entire body feels cold. He thinks that Andy might be say something to him, but he can’t hear it.

All he hears is waves.

He hears waves because it’s where Nicky has always been the calmest, by the water. Joe knows it’s because he’s from a port city, and that never truly leaves someone. Nicky at his most vulnerable, his most open, was always by the water. His body would relax and he would ease into Joe, easy to smile and easy to laugh.

They were going to the Mediterranean. They were going to find each other again, just like they’ve learned over the years. They were going to—

“Joe!” Nile stands in front of him, her gun across her body, hand raised as if she’s considering slapping him. Would’ve been a bold move if she had, he gave her that.

“He went after Booker.”

The sentence is so simple, and he berates himself for not anticipating this would happen. Joe had seen Nicky’s anger against the man, the betrayal and disdain he’d felt. A part of him wonders why he bothered, but then he realizes, this is what Nicky would’ve always done. He’d been so worried about keeping Andy as safe as possible, it didn’t occur to him.

“You knew that Booker was going on a suicide mission.” Andy states, taking a step toward him.

“As did you.”

“As did Nicky.” Andy concludes, her hands up. “He went to give Booker a chance—”

“Booker does not _deserve a chance!”_ Joe shouts, his gun trembling in his hand.

Joe feels his body stilling. He grows cold when another blast ricochets above their heads. “I’m going to get him—”

“Joe, wait!” Nile says, placing her hand up and stepping in front of him.

The movement startles him enough to stop him, Joe’s eyes narrowing.; “Nile, get out of the way.”

Bullets rain over his head, and he feels himself steeling himself. “Joe, listen. They are coming for us now. The moment you step out there, alone, they will kill you. And we will be right back where we were, except this time, there will be no way out. If we regroup, we can plan. We can strategize. We can get them back. You can’t do that if you’re dead.”

“I will come back to life.”

“You can’t do that if you’re strapped next to him!” Nile tries, her voice cracking.

Joe wonders if he’d be willing to kill Nile. He tilts his head, surveying her. Sure, she’s very good. But she’s green. And she’ll hesitate. If that’s what it takes to get to Nicky, he’d do it. He’d do it as much as it would take.

“Joe, she’s right.”

When Andy’s voice cuts through his fog of violence, he whips around. “You can’t be serious!”

“You know she’s right. They’re coming for us right now, and if we want to have any chance of escaping, we need to leave. We can help them if we plan, we can’t help them like this.”

“I’m going.” Joe says. “You can leave, I’m going.”

“Joe, stop!” Nile states, bringing her gun up. She’s aiming for his head, her stance wide.

Joe can hear the guards running down the stairs. The gunshots from above have quieted and everything is still. It’s like a breath before breaking the surface of water, when everything comes together. “You’re going to kill me, Nile?”

“We need to regroup. Andy’s in danger here, and she can die.”

It’s a cheap shot, but Joe feels it.

Except he’s finding that he can’t see past his panic. He steps closer to her, Nile standing her ground, gun shaking. “Joe, Nile is right. She’s too new, I’m mortal now – we _need_ you to help figure this out.”

Joe leans his head closer to her gun. “You’re gonna have to kill me.”

Nile’s shaking. Her eyes are wide and panicked and full of fear. The footsteps of the guards grow louder, like drums to their doom.

“You can’t.”

“She may not be able to,” Andy say behind him. “But I can.”

There’s a shot, and then dark.  
  


***

It’s all too familiar.

They’ve stuck Booker and Nicky in the same room this time, the amount of guards around them almost ridiculous. Nicky swallows next to him, his eyes on the ceiling. Booker can see the man shaking, blood stained on his face, the bullets burrowing out of his body as they lie there.

“With my previous research at Merrick Labs, I think I’ve come up with a concoction to slow their healing.” Dr. Kozak is saying to Quyhn. “It won’t make them mortal, but it’ll slow them down. It’ll make them easier to contain, so they stop coming back to life so quickly.”

“Do it.”

Booker never met Quyhn before, outside his dreams. He has no true connection with her like the others do, outside of the stories he heard. So when the woman watches coldly as the two are injected with a substance he wants nowhere near his body, he curses at her with the fury that Joe might even be proud of, if they were speaking. She doesn’t respond, except for the corner of her mouth that turns up.

“Not ideal to lose three, but these two will be fine while you collect the others.” Dr. Kozak says to the woman, who doesn’t keep her eyes off of Booker. “Also, lucky that we got one of the original specimens.”

“He has a name, you asshole.” Booker finds himself shouting because hey, Joe’s not here and he feels like it needs to be said.

The corner of Nicky’s mouth curls up as he stares at the ceiling.

Quyhn walks around them, her eyes dark. Nicky’s decidedly not looking at her, but his fingers are curled into fists at his sides. With a quick motion, she pulls a dagger from the lip of her boot. She strikes with the speed and ferocity of a viper, plunging it into Nicky’s leg and then in Booker’s. The two cry out more out of surprise than anything, the woman peering at their wounds. They bleed, trickling down the side of the examiner chair and onto the floor. Booker can feel his body trying to heal, but it feels like a dimmer switch, barely giving enough light.

“Good work.” Quyhn says to the doctor as they continue to bleed.

For the first time, Booker is afraid.

Before, it was a means to an end, but this?

There’s no way this ends well.

The women leave, Nicky and Booker left to be surrounded by guards and the beeping of monitors.

“What the hell, Nicky?” Booker shouts the moment they’re out of the room. “What were you thinking?”

He doesn’t respond.

“Is this your way of getting back at me? Putting your pain on my conscious? Because I gotta say, even for you, it’s a little extreme.”

Nicky continues to stare at the ceiling.

“I just can’t fucking believe this, how can you just lie there and—”

“Five hundred, Booker.”

Booker is startled out of his rant at Nicky’s words. The man is staring at the ceiling, eyes unblinking. Except his jaw is twitching. His hands are still in fists and his bleeding on the ground.

“I’m sorry?”

Nicky finally turns his head, the only movement they’ve been given. “Five hundred, Booker. I’ll heal faster than you.”

Booker blinks. “What?”

Nicky looks at him expectantly. When he doesn’t elaborate, Booker takes it in. The shaking, the bleeding. The storm behind his eyes. Nicky is afraid.

Booker stops his rant and sucks in a breath. “By the end of this, I’m going to take everything you own.”

A smile stretches on Nicky’s face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: So, I got a bit carried away!
> 
> Sorry about that lol – I just have a lot of feelings. Since I wanted the character arc of forgiveness, I thought it’d be interesting if Nicky and Booker were stuck together. And honestly, I don’t think Joe would ever leave unless he was quite literally forced to by being dead. And it’s not them being cruel – but they genuinely are like, ‘okay, we’re about to die and get recaptured, we need to regroup so we can save them.’
> 
> I hope you liked this chapter! <3 <3 <3


	3. You Were My Town

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi Loves!
> 
> Sorry for the delay, I was really busy, but I’ve had this all in my mind! So excited for you to read the next segment <3 <3 <3

CHAPTER THREE

_You Were My Town_

“You drive.”

Nile startles. Good thing she has good reflexes, because suddenly a set of keys are flying toward her head. Catching them with as much grace as she can, she stares. Andy always drives. That’s what everyone tells her – unless she is actively dead, Andy drives. Joe’s arm is thrown over her shoulder and Andy is standing a foot next to them, her arm around his waist. “I’m sorry, what? They said you always drive. At Merrick’s lab after being shot, you still drove.”

“I do,” Andy says, opening the door and helping hoist Joe’s limp body into the backseat. “But this is special circumstances.”

“How? You aren’t shot, aren’t you?”

Andy snorts, walking around the car. “I’m hoping he’ll be less inclined to kill you if you’re driving.”

Nile freezes, her hand on the door, Joe slumped in the side seat. “Wait, what? He wouldn’t actually kill me, would he?”

“That’s exactly what he’s going to do the moment he wakes up.”

“But, wha—” Nile cries, not moving from her spot. “ _You’re_ the one who shot him!”

“Well, he can’t kill me, can he?”

Nile supposes she’s right, but it doesn’t make her feel any better. Nile scurries to the front of the car, opening the door. Andy goes in the back, which feels even weirder. Except she watches as Andy carefully pulls the seat belt across her body – something it took Nicky and Joe an extremely long time and three trays of baklava to convince her to do so – and she looks at Joe.

He’s slumped over in the seat, eyes closed and blood stained on his forehead. Nile is grateful and horrified of Andy, and isn’t really sure which one she feels stronger. When she stood in front of Joe, his eyes deadly, it was like she didn’t recognize him. He seemed like a different person, lethal and cold. Logically, she knew they all were. She knew as kind as Nicky is, he was deadly. As sarcastic as Booker is, he was vicious. As calm as Andy is, she was explosive.

And Joe…

As warm and exuberant as he is, Joe was lethal.

She’d never seen anyone look at her like that. Even when she killed in Afghanistan, it’s not anything she’s experienced. He looked at her, but he didn’t really _see_ her. She knew in that moment, he was ready to kill. He was as lethal as he’s ever been.

It was terrifying.

“Don’t hold it against him.” Andy says quietly form the back, her arm across his body like a seatbelt itself. She’s eyeing Nile in that way that makes her feel like Andy can read her thoughts, as if she’s screaming them out loud. “They have never truly been apart. Not really.”

Nile grips the wheel of the car, turning a corner a little sharper than intended. “How is that possible?”

“Nicky and Joe have a… complicated history. It’s not particularly my story to tell. But both will do… irrational things to remain close. You spend almost a millennium with someone you love, you grow protective of them. Especially when you don’t know when the time will end.”

“He has to have known.” Nile says, trying to fixate on the road, but she catches a glimpse of Joe’s hand twitching. Sucking in a breath, she prepares herself. “He has to have known that staying would be suicide. That we all would be locked in cages and there would be a very little chance of us getting out.”

“He knows,” Andy says, running her hands through his curls. It’s gentle, almost motherly, the motion. Her thin fingers brush and brush, his hand twitching even more. “But the thing is, Nile. If given the choice, between being in a cage with Nicky and being free without him, his answer may not make any sense to you.”

Nile can’t wrap her mind around that. Loving someone that wholly, so that any time apart would be like dying itself. It’s beautiful and it’s tragic, and Nile is fairly positive she’s about to die at the hands of the man she tore away from his love.

A sharp breath is heard from the back and Joe jolts awake. His entire body lurches forward, the slug from his forehead burrowing out of his body. His eyes are wild and confused, Nile watching him carefully as his head whips around the car as he tries to get his bearings.

She sees the moment clarity hits. His hands jerk forward at her, insane and vicious, Andy reaching out and yank his forearms back. “How dare you!” He shouts, his face twisting in something pained and enraged at the same time, his eyes already filled with tears. “How dare—”

“Joe, this is not the time!” Andy shouts, but he is able to reach past, ripping at Nile’s shoulder. He manages to wrap his fingers around her shirt, yanking her back so her hands fly off of the wheel. The car jerks forward and swerves, Nile able to grab it just in time before they swerve into ongoing traffic. “We need to—”

Without hesitation, he pulls a blade from his boots and swings it next to Andy’s head. Nile shouts, throwing her arm back. She isn’t entirely sure what it’ll do, but the car is swerving, Joe has a knife to Andy’s throat, and everything is so _loud_. “Joe, stop!” Nile cries, Andy’s hands gripping his forearm tightly. It shakes as he pushes closer to her neck, Joe’s eyes filled with fire.

“Joe!” Andy shouts, her arms shaking too much for Nile. Nile jerks the car to the side of the road, the tires skidding on the dirt. “Nile, no!” She shouts, from the back. “Keep driving!”  
  


“What, are you crazy? He’s going to hurt—”

“Joe, look at me.” Andy says, her words strained under the effort it is taking to fend him off. “Look at me, look into my eyes. Come back. Come back to us.”

Joe isn’t moving. His arms are pushing toward her neck, closer and closer. The tip of the knife breaks skin, blood dripping down her neck.

The stalemate isn’t breaking. If anything, Joe’s pushing hard against Andy, the woman hurt and bleeding from the explosion. So Nile does the only thing she can think of, just after checking Andy really wearing her seatbelt.

She slams on the breaks.

Joe slams against the back of the seat, the knife scattering to the ground. With the small distraction, Andy is able to wrap her arm around his, pull back, and snap his arm in two. Joe doesn’t even let out a shriek when his bone cracks. Andy doesn’t stop looking him in the eye. “Yusuf.” She states.

His hand trembles beneath hers.

_“Yusuf.”_

There’s a breath.

And then a break.

Nile isn’t sure which is more terrible. The sound of his arm snapping in two or _Joe snapping in two._

She can pinpoint the moment he comes back to them, and point everything crumbles.

It’s terrible and visceral. It sounds like heartbreak and loss, all at once. His face falls and he bends over, his hands running through his hair. Nile can see them shake as he grips his head. Andy doesn’t touch him anymore. She lets go of his arm and it cracks back into place, Andy staying clear of his stance.

The car ride is quiet and terrible.

When Nile pulls up to the safehouse a few hours outside Paris, Joe is out the door before the car stops. Nile slams on the breaks and takes her seatbelt off, swinging the door open. Before she can step out, a hand grips her shoulder. “No.”

Nile turns to see Andy, her expression unreadable. She is like a sculpture that woman, carved in marble and with even more history. “Andy—”

“No, Nile.”

There’s a crash from inside the house and Nile startles. “Andy, he’s under attack, we—”

_“No.”_

Nile stills under the woman’s touch as the terrible chaos from inside the house grow louder. “But—”

Andy shakes her head.

Instead, the two of them sit in the car, while the noise in the house rages on. There’s glass shattering, wood breaking, and cries of pain that make Nile’s heart shatter into too many pieces to count. It goes on for what seems like ages, the stars twinkling in the sky, oblivious to the destruction inside the house. Nile can’t even face it, turning her head away to wipe a tear.

The world grows quiet.

When the glass no longer shatters, when the wood no longer breaks, the world stills. It still rings in her ears, the cries that came from inside the safehouse.

“Alright,” Andy says, unbuckling her seatbelt. “Let’s go.”

Nile doesn’t know what to do. Her hand hovers over her gun, her entire body shaking. “He won’t hurt you.” Andy says, standing up and striding next to the door. “Not now.” Offering her hand, Andy looks as old as she must feel.

Nile isn’t sure if she believes Andy, but she trusts her enough to go along with it. The two women cautiously make their way into the house, Nile gasping once they do.

It’s torn apart. Everything that can be broken is. Plates, art, tables, chairs. They’re all in pieces on the ground, Joe in the center of it all. He sits like the eye of a hurricane, in the middle of the destruction he created. Stepping over a piece of what once was their dining table, Nile is afraid to approach him.

He’s on his knees.

On his knees, one hand out as if bracing himself from falling. Joe kneels in the kitchen, surrounded by objects and despair.

“A lifetime in a cage with Nicky?” Nile asks lowly, blinking away a few tears.

Andy’s eyes are distant, as if worlds away. Nile thinks they may just be, or perhaps in an iron coffin under the sea.

“Yeah.”

***

Nicky loses track after a while.

First, he wins $500 for healing faster, which he knew he would. After all, he’s got seven hundred years on the man. But then Booker earns $300 back when he regrew a thumb quicker than Nicky did his toe. Nicky thinks it’s unfair seeing as he was just blown up, and still healing for the most part. But, Booker is strapped to a table and gone a couple days without a drink, so he gives it to the man.

Then Nicky earns $100 for headbutting a guard in the face, but Booker gets $400 for actually getting one hand untied before getting shot in the head on sight. The numbers fall apart after that.

If someone would ask Booker, he would say he’s far ahead of Nicky, who would vehemently disagree. Nicky is over nine hundred years old, there is no way he’s losing to a toddler. But they throw out numbers and bets – each more ridiculous than the next – pretending that any of it really matters, and that they're not locked in a prison together.

But when the night falls, and there’s nothing in the room other than the fluorescents and the guards, Nicky’s anger returns to him like an old friend. The laughter of the ridiculousness of their bets wears off and his eyes grow tired, and somehow he feels all of his years. Sometimes he can feel Booker turn his head to look at him, words on his lips that he never says. Nicky doesn’t want to know.

He doesn’t want to know because he’s too angry to hear them.

It’s an anger he thought he’d gotten rid of, taken away by time like sand to sea. An anger that made him slaughter Joe’s people as God’s sword, except he never realized that Anger was the true hilt of the sword. Nicky can’t think of his time in the crusades without feeling same and error, his world destroying someone else’s.

But the anger never disappeared. It’s there, it’s real, and it’s fierce.

Instead, Nicky tries to sleep with thoughts of Joe in his mind, remembering every curve of his smile, every curl on his head. He’s spent more lifetimes than he deserves memorizing the man, and would gives anything to spread more.

Except the poison from the IV bag now hooked up to his arm is pissing him off.

“Nicky,” Booker says next to him.

Nicky thinks it may be early morning, but it’s hard to tell. There are no windows in their lab, but the guards just switched out, the new ones yawning in the way that tells him it’s no longer midday. He doesn’t respond.

“Nicky, please.”

It’s a heartbreaking sound, Booker like this.

“Enough with the bets, enough with everything, please, can we talk?”

Nicky still doesn’t respond, his jaw clenching as he tries to tune the man out.

“I don’t think you would’ve followed me here if you didn’t want to talk.”

Nicky turns his head. “Care to talk about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ?”

Booker’s eyes widen when he speaks, his serious visage soon breaking. A laugh breaks through his expression and he shakes his head. “Jesus, Nicky, you are honestly a little shit, you know that, right?”

Nicky snorts at that, returning his attention to the ceiling.

Booker doesn’t say anything else after that, but Nicky can feel his gaze on him. “I suppose you’re right, Booker.” He states, watching the lights flicker above him. He hates these false lights. He likes nothing more than being outside in the sunlight, the warmth on his skin. He hates the sterility of the lab – everything false and clinical. “I—”

“Rise and shine,” the door swings open when a fleet of guards storm in. Quyhn and Dr. Kozak follow close behind, observing the two while Booker curses under his breath.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were scared of us, Quyhn.” Nicky finds himself saying, because he’s a little flustered and he hates the way the serum feels coursing through his veins.

Quyhn doesn’t react. Nicky remembers a time when she would laugh easily, react warmly. He supposes that he’ll never really experience that Quyhn anymore, the woman he loved now drowned forever at the bottom of the ocean.

“We want to move to the next stage of testing.” Dr. Kozak says as if Nicky understands any of that. On cue, a table is rolled in by some young-looking interns, Nicky frowning. They were babies. Babies being corrupted by the desire of man. “We’re pleased with how the serum is reacting to your body.”

“I’m not pleased.” Booker says from his bed. “I’d like to lodge a formal complaint.”

Nicky can’t help but smirk at that. Booker’s bullshit is welcome in certain times.

“I am sorry you got caught in the middle of this, Booker.” Quyhn states, walking over to where Nicky is strapped down. He eyes the woman, trying to find some piece of her he recognizes. It’s like a new terrain – looks familiar, but nothing is the same. “I did not want to involve you in this way.”

“Then why not let him go?” Nicky muses.

Everyone seems to stop at that. Nicky is surprised, he’s definitely said more appalling things. Perhaps no one understood, Joe the only one who could understand when he was speaking angry and low, or maybe no one expected him to stand up for Booker. God knows, he’s angry enough not to.

“Excuse me?” Quyhn asks darkly.

Nicky turns to her. “You said it yourself. Your quarrel is not with Booker. He’s been alive for only two hundred years.”

“Nicky—” Booker says cautiously from beside him.

“Your anger should not be placed at him.”

“Is this what you think this is?” Quyhn asks, her words growing dim. “Anger?” She laughs, hollow and divisive. “I was trapped in a box underwater for _five hundred years_ , anger does not even begin to cover what I feel. I have lived thousands of years, my deeds have spanned lifetimes and you think I will trivialize myself with an emotion such as _anger_?” Quyhn steps closer to Nicky. “Is that what you feel, Nicolò? Toward Booker? Anger?”

Nicky swallows. He feels the cracks in his resolve, the splinters of his anger spidering across him.

“I thought you were more evolved than that. I would assume, all the time you spent not looking for me, you would’ve learned a thing or two.”

Nicky tilts his head up. “What you are doing will not give you the peace you seek.”

Quyhn’s eyes rage at that. It’s like a switch flips and she’s at his side, a small dagger pulled from somewhere. Nicky’s certain she has them hidden all throughout her garb, the surprise stab from the first day still in his mind. “What do you know of what I seek?” She asks, words venomous and terrible.

Nicky’s eyes water. He can’t help it, seeing the woman he loved for years. His sister, his fellow soldier, his family. He can see the hate and rage in her eyes, like a volcano ready to explode, and the unhinged glint on her face. Clenching his jaw, he says to her, “I’d imagine you want revenge. But what your soul really needs is peace.”

Quyhn stands there, the dagger in her hand, raised over him. She’s trembling with rage, insanity, and something that Nicky might consider sorrow if he was a betting man. “Enough of this!”

She bring the dagger down and Nicky sucks in a breath, his entire body jerking forward. He thinks Booker may shout something beside him, but there’s too much pain for him to really register anything. The blade twists in his sternum and he thinks that maybe he should get used to it. Maybe he should consider the woman who was pitched into the sea was lost forever.

Except.

As she digs the blade deeper in his sternum, so deep that the hilt hits his chest and he can feel her fingers press against his ribs, there is something in her eyes. They’re watering, a single tear dripping down her cheek as she presses harder. It drips onto his bear chest as he tries to keep his eyes open, blood rolling down his side. “You have no idea what I want.”

Nicky doesn’t say anything.

He doesn’t say anything because he’s tired and there’s darkness curling around his eyes as he tries to keep himself tied to this world. He doesn’t say anything because he’s searching – desperately clawing through the coldness to try and find his sister.

No one he recognizes looks back at him.

She pulls the blade out and Nicky sucks in a breath, closing his eyes. He can feel his body trying to heal, but it’s like a car trying to start; sputtering, tripping over itself as the engine pitters out. He absently thinks she’s punctured his lung, because it’s a bit harder to breathe, and the world is feeling a little more tilting than usual.

“Him first.” Quyhn spits down at him, the blade falling from her grasp. It clatters to the ground, blood splattering around the metal and the linoleum floors. “We’ll see how much he wants to give advice then.”

“I wouldn’t waste breath on advice if it is falling on deaf ears.” Nicky states, trying his best to speak through his regrowing lungs.

“Alright, him first. It’ll be good to continue my research with him. Have you been able to get my documentation from Merrick Labs?” Dr. Kozak asks.

“Not yet. He had it locked down fairly securely,” Quyhn says. “We just have to figure out where he backed up his files. The files were destroyed in the massacre at the lab.”

Nicky can’t help but smile at that. He wonders what did it – the shooting or the grenades. Despite the man putting a bullet in his brain, he may have to thank Keane posthumously for his tactics.

The woman stalks out of the room, nothing more than a bloody knife and a collapsed lung in her wake. Dr. Kozak turns to Nicky, her eyes clinical. He can’t help but grin at that, the memory of their time together still fresh. _An excellent justification. I’ve heard it so many times before._ Given her hesitation with saying anything to him, he thinks she must remember it to.

“What are you doing with him?” Booker calls from beside him and Nicky turns his head to smile at the man. He receives the most scathing stare back, an anger billowing from Booker that he doesn’t quite understand. “Nicky, you have to stop.”

Nicky’s gaze flits to Dr. Kozak, frowning at his candor in her presence. “Stop what?”

“Stop antagonizing her – she’s clearly lost her mind! She’s been drowning in a box for five hundred years!”

Dr. Kozak’s hands stop. It’s almost imperceptible, but it’s there. Nicky surveys the woman, her hands quickly going back to whatever syringes they were filling.

She didn’t know.

Nicky doesn’t say anything, but can’t help but think that something is about to change.

“It is not your battle, Booker.” Nicky says softly. “You do not deserve Quyhn’s wrath.”  
  


“Don’t I, though?” Booker says, turning his head to the ceiling. “After… everything.”

“All our sins are great, Booker. We are humans, and we make mistakes under the guise of good.” He looks squarely at Dr. Kozak when he says that, watching the woman continue her work. She injects something into his IV as they talk, the cold rush of fluid coursing through his veins. He cracks his neck. Nicky’s always hated this. It’s so medicinal and clinical.

So Nicky lets his mind wander. He doesn’t have the energy to have this conversation with Booker. He’s tired and his body is screaming as it’s healing in a way he isn’t used to.

So instead, he does what he’s does whenever he needs hope.

Nicky thinks of Joe.

His mind drifts to the time in Malta – a time he was hoping to relive once they’d taped themselves back together from the labs.

He remembers feeling free there. It was the first time that he and Joe decided that they wanted to go somewhere, not to fight, not to change the world, but to be. It was a few years into their lives together, when they’re begrudging partnership was turning into something that looked like more. Nicky had his breakdown after the massacre of children and they had a night in the torrential rain where they became closer and one.

So, they traveled to Malta, Nicky trying to forget the faces of the children who looked blankly up at him.

The water was clear enough to see the secrets in your soul, the city bustling and beautiful. He watched Joe flit around the market, excitedly speaking with vendors and people on the street. Nicky remembers thinking he’d never seen anything more beautiful. He never quite understood God’s purpose, but it lead him to this moment, so maybe there was something. 

The light was soft over the city, peaking through the buildings that rose up on the hill and glittering on the water.

_“Nicolò, everything alright?” Yusuf had asked and Nicolò realized he hadn’t said anything all day. He spent his time marveling at the beauty and color of the world, and even more that he felt like he had purpose and something he wanted more than God’s love. It was frightening and exciting, like he’d come back to life. A breath coursed through him._

_“Of course.” He responded. He didn’t really know what to say after that._

_Because what could he say? How could he tell the man before him that he’s experiencing love in a way he’s never known? That he thought his love of God was the force that he needed – but it violent. It was terrible and tragic and built on the lives of the innocent and stained with blood._

_With Yusuf, it was something else._

_It was breathing in crisp, morning air, it was dipping his toes in a cool stream. It feel infinite and bigger than his body could contain, and he thought that if he was lucky enough, he would spend the rest of his life trying to fill the cracks of his soul with the light Yusuf gave._

_“I know that face, Nicolò. We have been companions for years now, don’t you think I know when you’re lost in your own mind?” Yusuf strides over to where he was and places his hands on the sides of Nicolò’s face. Nicolò has a hard time not dipping his head deeper into the man’s embrace, feeling peace and excitement all at once. “What is it?”_

_Nicolò has never been great with words. It’s the teaching of the Catholic Church – words, not action. So, he says what he thinks. “You.”_

_Yusuf looks confused at this, his hands pulling away briefly, but Nicolò covers them with his own to keep them from falling. “I have not known beauty before I met you.”_

_The hurt and confusion slips away and Yusuf’s eyes twinkle in the light off the sea. “Our lives are going to be that of legend.”_

_Nicolò laughs, free and easier than he’s ever laughed. “I would wish a thousand quiet lives, if I but got to spend them with you.”_

_Yusuf looks like he wants to say something, but decides against it. Instead, he pulls Nicolò close, and his lips do something else_.

It’s a beautiful memory that Nicky treasures. The way the sunlight glistened off of Joe’s skin, and the warmth in his eyes. The fear he felt when telling the beautiful man before him that all he wanted was a thousand lifetimes with him.

“This is going to hurt.”

Dr. Kozak’s words make Nicky open his eyes. She’s standing by his IV, another syringe inserted. He frowns. She never says anything like that, even after cutting off fingers and sticking probes in him. What could possibly—

She presses the syringe and Nicky is on _fire_.

***

“You have _got_ to be fucking kidding me!”

Joe’s shouting, which seems to be his general level these days. It gives Andy a headache because she still hasn’t quite healed from the bomb explosion. Human healing is so obnoxious. She wanted nothing more than this all to be over, but now as she’s entering the final lap, she can’t help but be annoyed.

They’re in Copley’s house, the board of all their accomplishments long gone and replaced with something more. Footage of Merrick’s Lab, the warehouse Kozak and Quyhn took them in Paris, receipts and weird symbols Andy doesn’t quite understand. “You have had a fucking week and all you can say is _‘I don’t know?’_ ” Joe continues, rounding on Copley.

To Copley’s credit, he doesn’t flinch. Instead he heaves another sigh, opening his mouth to start what must be another explanation none of them – except maybe Nile – will understand. “They have been very proficient in covering their tracks.” Copley says. “They are no longer in the warehouse and have been using different identities. I’m having a hard time tracking—”

“You got enough information to betray us a few weeks ago, didn’t you?” Joe snaps, his expression wild. “Why don’t you put that betrayal energy to use?”

“You know that’s not the same thing, and you know it, Joe.” Andy sighs, rubbing her temples. He’s being too loud and she can’t think straight.

“I spent years collecting that data,” Copley counters, and Joe swipes something off a table and it crashes.

“Not helping, man,” Nile says softly to Copley, who finally shudders at the quick movements.

“I’m just saying that they have their own team and I’m doing everything I can to find them. If we had more information – if we could get some kind of lead—”

“Tell me what to do and I’ll do it!” Joe shouts at him, his hands clenched in fists.

“Okay, everyone.” Andy says, putting her hands up. “Copley, Nile. You guys brainstorm ways we can get leads. Joe, a word.”

“There’s no time, we—” Joe starts, swiping his hand out of Andy’s grasp, but she grips him tightly and leads him out of the room.

She understands. She understands his white hot anger and fear. Because, despite no one wanting to say anything, they’re afraid of becoming her. Nicky and Joe have always looked at her in a way that she knew was fear. Because she was what they were afraid of. Half of her torn away, living in despair and regret. Now Joe is feeling it – feeling that fear and anger and she isn’t quite sure what to say.

“ _What_ , Andy!” Joe shouts, wrenching his arm out of their grip when they’re outside. “What could you—”

“They’re doing the best they can.” Andy states calmly, trying not to fall into his panic, despite the fact that it’s rising in her chest. “We are trying to—”

“It’s been a week!” Joe shouts, gesturing wildly. “A week, Andy. A _week_!”

“Yes, I know, but—”

“No, no buts!” Joe says, his face twisted into something misshapen and pained. “I’m tired of people saying we need to be patient, we need more time. There is no time! I was there with Nicky last time, remember? I know the sort of things they’re doing to him. I _know_ what they’re trying to get from him. They’re using him as a lab rat, trying to push his limits to see how far they can test the genomes. And he’s going to die, over and _over_ again while they write down the results!”

He throws his hands up in the air and curses loudly. Andy’s eyes water watching him. She gets it. Feeling crazy and like a bomb, ready to explode onto the world. She understands what it means to be the person left behind.

_A week_.

Oh.

He’s said it so many times, she didn’t even think.

She knew about the week they were apart after being shipwrecked, but the two didn’t particularly like to talk about it. This is the longest they have ever been apart – and there’s no light at the end of the tunnel.

“Joe—”

“Why did we think that we should talk to Booker at all! He had his punishment, we _never should’ve_ gone to Paris!”

“Joe—”

“If we never would’ve gone, Nicky wouldn’t be captured and I—” He runs his hands through his curls, tears filling his eyes and expression lost. “We never should’ve trusted that fucking _deserter!”_

“Joe!” Andy shouts. “That’s not fair and you know it. You know Booker’s story, you know why he deserted Napoleon. The same could be said for Nicky, he left the church because—”

“ _Don’t_.” Joe says, his words venomous. “Don’t you dare.”

“This isn’t helping, Joe.” Andy snaps. “I’ve given you your time, but now is the time for a little toughness. You need to pull yourself fucking together. I know this situation is fucked and everything is terrible. But you biting Copley and Nile’s – and for fuck sake, _my_ head off isn’t going to help anything. You’re making it go slower with everything and I know that’s the last thing you want. You need to accept the fact that Nicky made a choice in there. A choice you may not understand, but a choice that he _always_ was going to make. What does he always say, Joe?”

Joe doesn’t respond, his jaw clenched and trembling with rage.

“We can do some _good._ And Booker’s actions were betrayal, but he is still one of us. Nicky wasn’t going to allow him to be captured and tortured alone. He made that call because it’s what he believes in and you know what else he believes in?”

The man is a statue, unmoving, unresponsive.

Andy marches over to where he is, gripping the back of his neck. _“You.”_ She presses, squeezing his neck tightly. “Nicky believes in you and he knows that he will not be there forever. You have to trust yourself and us, the way Nicky would. Nicky would not leave you, he would not have gone after Booker if he thought the two of you would be separated forever. He’s a good person, but not _that_ good. He knows you’re coming for him. So if you don’t trust yourself, trust his love for _you_.”

Joe blinks a few times, tears rolling down his cheeks. Then he jerks toward her and she goes to grab a knife in her back pocket, but instead, he wraps his arms around her. He pulls her so tight, it’s painful, but she doesn’t care how her bones creak against his embrace. She can hear the stifled sob in her shoulder, his body breaking down, exhausted and tired. Andy holds him there, keeping the pieces together as he falls apart.

He falls apart.

Falls apart in a way that is loud and quiet at the same time. The aftermath of an explosion, when it’s chaotic and quiet at the same time, the world tilting back into focus. She feels her own tear fall down her cheek, her chest aching for him. For Nicky.

For Quyhn.

She’d pushed her feelings for the woman aside, but watching Joe lose himself is more than she can take. She remembers the first week after she decided to stop searching for the other part of her soul, remembers how she felt numb and on fire at the same time, but unsure of how that could be. How everything was falling apart, but she was alive and there was nothing she could do.

She won’t let Joe feel that.

No one should _ever_ feel that.

“We’re going to figure this out.” Andy says softly in his ear when the cries have quieted down. “And we’re going to make everyone involved pay.”

Joe startles at that, whipping his head up. His eyes are red and water. He surveys her face at her words, clearly looking for any lie. When he doesn’t find anything, his entire visage hardens.

With a cold rage, he nods.

***

Turns out, it’s diseases.

Booker thinks of when he made the deal with Copley. To save humanity, to end disease.

To find a way out.

He feels sick.

Watching Nicky next him attempt to heal, lacerations covering his body, a thin sheen of sweat on his forehead. It reminds him of the Bubonic Plague, the sores covering his body as it tries to heal. Nicky’s been talking in a slurred Italian for a while now, not making any particular sense. It’s feverish and quick, Booker only able to catch things like _‘my love, do not fear’_ and _‘what am I, if no longer a weapon?’_

It makes him realize, he doesn’t really know that much about how Nicky feels about himself.

Booker knows he’s next, wondering what disease they’ll be giving him. He figures they want to track how they heal, how their genetics fight it, but the serum that is constantly flowing through them makes it more visceral than he could ever imagine.

“It’s okay, Nicky,” Booker says quietly when the man calls out, his head lolling to the side at the noise. “It’s okay, it’ll be over soon.”

Nicky’s head stays turned toward him, his eyes glassy and distant in a way that seems so unlike him. He’s always alert – his sniper ability through every part of his body. But the man before him – the man is distant. Far away, like in a tunnel, too much between them. “That’s what I told myself in the beginning,” he says, his words coming out like mush.

Booker frowns. “What?”

“When I realized I couldn’t die. It’ll be over soon.” Nicky say, his eyes closing. “How was I to live with the sins I committed. It was a cruel joke—” Nicky gasps in pain, coughing slightly.

For the first time, Booker understands.

As much as he knew he had to be punished, he didn’t understand the severity. But watching there, wasting away, he gets it. What he’d done. Because they were collateral damage. Booker thought he was giving Andy a gift – giving himself a way out.

They were collateral damage he never considered.

“Nicky, it’s okay, you don’t need to say anything,” Booker says, his eyes watering. “You should be healing now. It’s almost over.”

“You said you had no one.” Nicky slurs. “That Joe and I had each other, but you only had your pain. Maybe it’s my fault.” He says, taking a deep, shuddering breath.

“How can this possibly be your fault?” Booker asks. “I know you’ve got the guilt complex, but that’s insane, even for you.”

“Because I love you, Booker. And we didn’t show you enough. Sure, I’ve always had Joe. But you have always had us.” Nicky says distantly, his words growing quieter.

Booker freezes. He stares at the man slowly drifting to sleep, his body growing more slack. He sees the sores starting to heal, slowly reducing in size, Nicky’s skin clearing.

“Nicky—”

Nicky opens his eyes.

“If I loved you less, maybe I could’ve forgiven you easier.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: THIS MADE ME REALLY EMOTIONAL.
> 
> I know this was really character fallout heavy – I just wanted a chapter for the fallout of the last one. The next chapter will move the plot more forward, but I just needed time for EMOTIONS. I hope that’s alright.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed! Also, if you need someone to freak out on Tumblr with, I’m @chase-thewind-touch-thesky. <3 <3 <3 So much love!


	4. Now I'm in Exile

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi loves! I’m having too much fun with this fic. If you don’t follow me on tumblr, I have planned out the rest of the fic and decided that there will 4 more chapters! 3 regular and 1 very necessary epilogue, which you will understand what I mean when we get there.
> 
> I will say I’m really excited for a handful of scenes – particularly between Nicky and Booker, which I think will be really fun. BUT, that said, this is a chapter where things get worse before they get better… much worse.
> 
> So let’s do this! <3 <3 <3

CHAPTER FOUR

_Now I’m In Exile_

A mug is set down in front of her.

Nile almost startles at it, which makes her feel a bit foolish. It’s then she realizes that she hasn’t moved in a few hours. The computer screen is burning her eyes and she sees _2:03_ am flashing before her eyes. Blinking, everything burns. It’s such a shitty deal, being immortal. She doesn’t feel any different – she still struggles to keep awake, she has aches in her joints. If anything, she just gets shot at much more.

What she doesn’t expect is Joe to sit next to her, a cup of tea in his own hands, his fingers white knuckled around the porcelain. He sits close to her, his shoulder touching hers. It’s so intimate, she feels the need to scoot away, but she doesn’t. Joe doesn’t say anything at first. His hands hold the mug tightly, his shoulders still.

“I’m sorry.”

He says it so softly, she thinks that she doesn’t hear him. Turning to face him, Joe is sitting there, as if carved in marble, unmoving. His eyes are cast downward, unseeing. He’d been such a vessel of rage and fear, she isn’t sure what to do. If anything, this is even more terrifying. She isn’t sure what he’d do.

Except he pushes the mug closer to her, and she sees the coffee swirling. He doesn’t move until she takes it off the table, the warmth curling in her fingertips. “I am,” he says, bringing his own drink to his lips. “Sorry. If I hurt you. Or if I scared you.”

Words catch in her throat and she finds her eyes watering. Whether it’s because of how tired she is, the steam of the coffee, or Joe himself, she isn’t sure. “I-It’s alright.”

He shakes his head slightly. “It’s not.” He mutters, taking another drink. “I-It’s not who we are.”

She doesn’t know who he’s talking about – the group of them, him and Nicky. He feels rudderless, like he’s been sent drifting out to sea. “I know that too.” She responds.

That’s when he looks at her. Really _looks_ at her.

His usually warm eyes are reddened around the corners and there are circles under them that show an age she can’t recognize. His jaw is clenches and lines around his eyes seem to have deepened. “I’ve never been without him for this long.” He says.

The words drop in the world, and drift out to see. Even though she knew this – even though Andy told her, it’s still surprising. Because it’s almost unfathomable – two people who have been alive for over nine hundred years, being together always.

“I didn’t think it would be that way,” he says, eyes distant. “When we met, he was the one terrorizing my people. I wanted nothing more than to get him as far away from me as possible. But then… he kept coming back to life and I kept coming back to life and I remember being so exhausted over it all. I remember thinking, there has to be a reason. There _has_ to be a reason I’m stuck with this man who… who is _still. There_.” Joe shuts his eyes and a tear leaks out. “He was always… there. When I didn’t understand who he was, what he was saying, god… _him_ , even.” Joe’s eyes widen. “I don’t even remember that, honestly. Not understanding Nicky… it’s so distant, I sometimes forget there was a time when I didn’t know exactly what he was feeling at given time.

“You know, we didn’t talk for almost half a year when we decided to start traveling together.” Nile makes a face and Joe laughs, the expression broken and pained. “I didn’t speak Italian, he didn’t speak Arabic. We reached a strange, mutual agreement. Wordless. I think he knew that if the Catholic Church saw him reanimate, they would… I don’t know. Call him a demon? Torture him? I knew the life I once led was over. I couldn’t be with my family, I couldn’t do what I thought I would. He was the only person I knew who understood. So, even though I hated him, I needed him.” Joe drains the rest of his tea. “I’ve needed him ever since.”

“Joe, we’re going to _find_ them.” Nile says, pressing every ounce of sincerity in it. “I know it’s been slow, but there is always something. I know we can do it.”

“Yeah,” Joe says, his voice cracked. Closing his eyes, he seems to go to a different place. A different time, maybe. “We didn’t even get to breathe after.” He murmurs. “I’ve never been so close to losing him and there was no time to breathe.”

Nile reaches out and grabs his hand. Joe startles at his, looking at her as she touches him. His eyes are wide, old, and infinite in their pain. “He will be alright.” Nile says, stern and true. “They both will be. Sure, they may have the advantage now, but I know that with persistence, anything is possible.”

Joe smiles weakly enough to where it doesn’t reach his eyes. “You’re so young,” he breathes, blinking away a few tears. “I forget.”

“My hope is not because I’m young, Joe.” Nile says, frowning. “My hope is because I am right.”

He laughs, through tears. “Oh, god help me when you and Nicky spend time together.” He says, pulling his hand out of hers and running it down his face. “Poor Booker, he’ll never have any solace between the lot of you.”

Nile can’t help but grin at that, the tire from the evening wearing on her. “What would…” she starts, making a face.”

“What?”

“What would help? Can I explain what I’m doing, or—”

“Oh god, no.” Joe says, waving his hand aside. “I have no interest in that sort of thing. I’ll just slow you down. But I don’t think you should get some sleep. Andy’s right, wearing ourselves down won’t help anything. I appreciate all the work you’ve given, when I have given you no support in return.”

“I know you don’t mean anything by it, Joe.”

“Still, my actions have been… unforgivable.” Joe states, sucking in a breath. “Oh I can just hear Nicky now. ‘ _If you burn the candle at both ends, Yusuf, you will do nothing but hurt yourself._ ’ He’s one to talk, really. You should see him if anyone’s in danger. I mean, he loses all rationale, I think he’s still trying to make up for his time in the Crusades. It makes him do things he wouldn’t seem to do. Take a bullet to the head for me. Get shot in the chest for Andy…”

“Stay and get captured with Booker?” Nile offers, her words hesitant.

Joe’s eyes squint, filling with tears again. “Yeah,” he says, the words breaking. “Yeah, get captured with Booker. Oh god,” he breathes, putting his hand over his face.

Nile feels a sense of sorrow. It washes over her like a tidal wave, to where she thinks she’ll drown in it. It crashes against her and Joe hunches over, his hands over his mouth, stifling any audible sobs. She can see the tears rolling down his cheeks, his hands gripping one another. “Can you tell me something good?” Nile asks.

Joe continues to shake. His eyes flit in her direction. “What?” She hears the rough reply.

“Can you tell me something good? Something… good about all these years.”

Joe removes his hands from his face, leaning back against the couch. “I suppose you haven’t had a lot of good, have you?” He says, voice rough. “I’ve had nine hundred years of it.”

Nile reaches over to him. “It’s not over.”

He nods, but she knows he doesn’t really hear her.

Instead, he takes a breath. “In 1402, Nicky and I had just been in a tough battle. Nicky has always had a thing about children – about innocents, as he calls them. He would move the world if he thought it would save a child from pain. We had been volunteering in this orphanage off the coast of Turkey, and there was a siege on the city. We fought throughout the night, the children hiding in the basement. It was a rare battle, when neither of us died, and everyone was safe.

“I remember looking at him, wide-eyed and panicked because he didn’t know where they were going to come from. But the children were all safe. We had protected them. The sun was rising up over the hills and the kids were let out from the basement, running all around us. He looked at me and smiled – like really _smiled_ – and I remember him saying, _‘This is why, Yusuf.’_ ” Joe smiles. “I didn’t even know he was still thinking about it. We spend hundreds of years together, and he didn’t talk about it. But it was as if something cracked and he saw the sunlight for the first time ever. And I remember thinking, if the man I’d experienced was clouded, there was only more to discover.

“The sun came out over the hills and the kids were all crying and laughing. Children are very resilient I’ve learned over the years. They were laughing and free, and he stood next to me, and took my hand. I saw the rest of my life. The rest of _our_ lives. I remember thinking, I would do anything to keep living every day with that man. I saw the sun rise and I saw hope.”

“Joe, there _is_ hope.” Nile states. “There’s—”

“I found something.”

The two of them look up. Copley stands over in the corner, his eyes bloodshot and worn. “What?” Joe asks, standing up quickly. “You have something?”

Copley nods. “They’re trying to find the files from Merrick labs.”

Nile makes a noise. “What do you mean?”

“They’re trying to find the files from Merrick Labs – the ones on you and Nicky. My guess is that Dr. Kozak is trying to find the results she already made.”

Joe freezes next to Nile, opening his mouth to speak, and then faltering. So Nile steps in. “How don’t they already have them.”

“Because I took them.” Copley says with a grin, gesturing for them to follow.

Joe leaps into action, Nile not far behind them. “What do you mean?”

“When you guys fought your way out, you burned the majority of the hard copies – there was nothing left. I downloaded the digital files and deleted everything from their system. And now they’re trying to find them.”

There’s a slam and Nile jumps. Andy is in the corner, her eyes trained on Copley. “What does that _mean._ ”

Copley’s mouth twitches up. “It _means_ , Andromache, I set a trap. It means… they fell for it.”

***

The world is hot, but his body is cold.

Nicky’s shivering, wishing he had his shirt. Even more so, he wishes he had Joe next to him. He misses the way the man fit into the crook of his body, the way his face nuzzled against his neck. Nicky’s feeling less like himself than he’s ever had – the way his body sticks to the steel of the bed, the way his forehead is slick with sweat.

The sores have healed, but his body is sluggish and slow to come back, everything dimmed. At one point, he lolls his head to the side where Booker lays. The man is looking at him like he assumes he has been for a while. Nicky blinks, and it feels like it takes forever. There’s a sheen of sweat on his forehead and his head is twitching a bit. “Are you okay, Booker? Did they… inject you?””

Booker frowns. “No, Nicky, they didn’t.”

Nicky narrows his eyes. “Then why do you look like that?”

Booker snorts. “Thanks Nicky, great for my self-esteem. You realize you look like complete shit, right?”

Nicky snorts. “I’m certain I look better than you.”

Booker rolls his eyes. “Keep telling yourself that, priest.” Nicky huffs a laugh. “No, I just… this is the longest I’ve ever gone with a drink. I-I may have a bit a problem.”

“Also, I could’ve told you that.” Nicky offers. He peers at Booker, surveying the man. “You sure, they haven’t touched you?”

“No, Nicky. Just you.” Booker states.

His words are sad. Nicky muses over this, the pain from the disease still thrumming like a base in his body. “Be happy, Booker.”

Booker huffs an empty laugh. “I don’t think there’s anything to be happy over, Nicky. I don’t even think even you can come up with something.”

Nicky gives it to him – it seems pretty grim.

“We look for the good, Booker. It’s what we do.”

“Maybe what you do, Nicky. Not me.”

Nicky tries not to be annoyed and fails. His fingers are still tingling and he feels the ghost of fire on his skin. He reminds himself that Booker is young, and alone. It gives him a bit of grace to give, despite having the urge to yell.

Booker seems to feel his annoyance, because the man states, “You shouldn’t have stayed. You should’ve gone with the rest of them. You shouldn’t be strapped here with me.”

“It’s what we do.”

“No, this is _not_ what we do. What I did… What I put you through. I didn’t think I was angry, I didn’t think I was trying to punish you, but I think I was trying to punish you.”

Nicky almost recoils at the honesty. He stares at the man he’s considered a brother and tries not to be heartbroken and fails. Because… he is. Booker broke his heart in a way he didn’t know was possible. There are very few truths he knows in the world, and Booker broke them.

One, he knows he loves Joe. He knows that Joe is his light in a dark world and the sun to his moon. He reflects his light and shines it on the world when it is in darkness. Two, he knows it’s not his time to die. All things must die, but he’s left on the world to do good – to try and save those who need to be saved. And three, he loves his family and they love him.

Or, at least, he thought they did.

He looks at Booker, the man trembling and weak next to him, self-hatred deep in his eyes and Nicky finds it familiar. He often looked at his reflection with that exact look, hating everything he was. The lives he took under the guise of holiness.

Nicky sees himself in Booker.

It’s terrifying, heartbreaking, and too much to bear.

He returns his gaze to the ceiling.

“You’ll discover, Booker, that life isn’t something you get to control. That embracing this like means understanding that the world is has no interest in your happiness. Has no interest in your pain, really. We are the makers of our own nightmares and dreams.” He turns back to face him. “What have you done to better your own world, Booker.”

Booker stares for a moment. There’s tension between the two of them, just as always. Except he’s staring at Nicky like he’s waiting for an answer. An answer to this misery and pain, an answer to his pain. “You are infuriating, do you know that?”

Nicky snorts. “So I’ve been told.”

“What are you here?” Booker asks, his words angry and incredulous. “Why did you stay? I don’t understand, you’re just lying there and they are going to kill us, Nicky. They will _kill_ us.”

“No, they won’t.”

“The shit in our arms isn’t pain killer, you know that right?” Booker states, his words getting a little hysterical. He streams into a flood of French swears, each more scandalous than the next, make Nicky lift his eyebrows. He says a few things that even Nicky has never heard before and he’s been around for a millennium and wasn’t sure that was possible. It’s impressive. “They are slowly killing us and at one point, they are going to go too far and we will be dead.”

“It is not our time.”

“What does that even fucking mean?” Booker shouts, slamming his head against the medical bed hard, the sound resounding in the room. A few of the guards look at him, as if they think they should restrain them, then decide against it. “It’s not our time? How the fuck do you know? Because last time I checked, you were dying about an hour ago and there was nothing you could do about it.”

“I die all the time.”

“Fucking asshole,” Booker mutters, a laughing sliding out despite his chaotic anger. “You know that, right? You are an asshole. Making me sit here and watch them torture you, when I was just trying to make it right! How dare you, Nicoló, how _dare you_. If you put your life on my conscience, I will _never_ forgive—”

“What do you know of forgiveness?” Nicky snaps, his coolness breaking. “You cannot forgive Yusuf and I for existing, you cannot forgive the world for making you this way, you cannot forgive Andromache for becoming mortal and not telling you, you cannot forgive yourself for outliving your family. So _excuse_ me for not viewing you as an authority on the subject matter!”

It’s been a while since Nicky’s raised his voice.

In fact, he can’t think of the last time he’s done so. The memory of Joe dying under Merrick’s hand is the only one that sticks out, his panic visceral and quick. But as he lies there, his body still healing, he feels his anger.

“I cannot give you what you want, Nicky.” Booker says after a moment. He’s taken his gaze away and placed it on the ceiling. “I cannot be who you need.”

The words strike Nicky like a shot to the chest. “I do no need you to be anyone but my family, Booker. And I will be the same.”

Booker’s eyes close and a few tears leak out. His chest heaves and he shakes. Perhaps the restraints are good, because it’s the only thing holding him together. Licking his lips, the man says, “I’m sorry. I truly am. I don’t think I ever said it, but what I did… I thought this was what I deserved.”

Like that, Nicky’s anger filters away. He doesn’t see the shattered Frenchman before him, he sees himself, collapsed on the ground, surrounded by the bodies he slaughtered in the name of God. A price he would never be able to repay. “It is not our job to keep score of what we deserve, my brother. Life is not a quid pro quo. Actions and charity do not need repayment to be worth something. We do good because it is what we are meant to do. It is not our time to die, because we have so much more good to put in the world.”

Booker shakes his head. “You can’t possibly know that.”

“Have a little faith, Booker.”

Booker whips his head in the man’s direction. His eyes are wide and it’s as if he sees a ghost. “I thought you were all about action.”

Nicky huffs a laugh. “It’s not mutually exclusive.”

“God, so many rules with you priests.”

Nicky laughs quietly to himself. He opens his mouth to say something else, but is interrupted when the door swings open and slams against the wall. Quyhn and Dr. Kozak enter the room, Nickly narrowing his eyes at the two women. He reminds himself that saying anything particularly vicious would not help his cause, particularly because he’s certain he has a relatively high fever and there are still sores on his body.

“How are you, Subject Two?” Dr. Kozak asks, putting on a set of gloves as she sits on the chair next to Nicky’s head.

_Subject Two._

Nicky thinks it’s been a while since he’s felt so inhuman. He busies his mind with memories of him and Joe the last time they were in the Mediterranean, thinking of all the food they ate while there. Nicky thinks next time they travel, he’ll have to remember to pick up some spices. The safehouses throughout the world are woefully lacking, and he can’t help but be annoyed at the limitations. Perhaps he’ll even invest in a new knife. Andy has a tendency to wear them out and despite sharpening her labrys with vigor, never seemed to remember the kitchen utensils.

Dr. Kozak scrapes against his still-healing sores and Nicky grunts, unable to stop himself from wincing. His body feels like an open wound, the woman digging around as if he isn’t a human being under her palm. He watches her work, his eyes boring against hers. Every once and a while, her gaze flicks up and they catch eyes. The woman can never hold it for long.

Quyhn is watching the woman work with an intensity she used to fight the world with. Nicky turns to the Doctor. “Are you getting what you desire?” He asks calmly.

Dr. Kozak doesn’t respond.

Quyhn’s eyes narrow.

He doesn’t bother with her. “For these paths are those we cannot turn back from.”

“Subject Two has shown great progress. The virus is almost completely cleared his system, even with the serum slowing his healing.”

“Well, that’s good news, Nicky.“ Booker says from his side. “You’re not going to die from a virus anytime soon.”

The corner of Nicky’s mouth turns up.

“Did he pass away during this?” Dr. Kozak asks the guards, frowning. “Or did his body heal before he was able to do so.”

“Didn’t die, that I’m aware of, ma’am.”

She frowns. “That’s unfortunate. I’ll be sure to have a more concentrated dose for Subject One.”

“Lucky me,” Booker mutters.

“What does it matter, if they die?” Quyhn asks, still surveying Nicky strapped to the table. “You’re trying to map their genetics of fighting it.”

“But if I can figure out what their bodies are doing once they die, I can figure out what needs to be done to prevent it. You’re an interesting case, actually.”

When she turns to Quyhn, it’s as if the air is sucked from the room.

Nicky leans up in his bed, as much as the restraints allow him to do so.

He sees it before it happens, but Quyhn doesn’t.

One of the guards reach over to where she is and grab her arms. Quyhn’s eyes widen and she fights against him, ripping out of his grasp. Quicker than anything he’s ever scene, she pulls a dagger from her boot and plunges it in the man’s neck. Then, more are on her, grabbing her limbs. Quyhn lets out a primal scream, fighting against those who have her in arms. She screams and she screams, Dr. Kozak grabbing a syringe from the tray table and pushing it against her neck.

The woman’s arms stop fighting, but her eyes remain wild. “No, no! Not this!” Quyhn shouts, her body clearly fighting the sedative with every ounce of strength she possessed. “What are you doing? Stop!”  
  


They move her over, a guard grabbing a third bed that had been stuck in the corner. Placing the woman on the bed, the guards strap her in, tightening the straps far too much, her skin red and angry underneath their fingertips. “No! _No!”_

Dr. Kozak walks over to the woman, pulling against the restraints. Nicky can almost hear her bones pleading against the strength. “You never told me that you drowned for five hundred years. Your genetics must be unlike anything I’ve ever seen.”

“No, we had a deal!” Quyhn shouts, pulling and pulling and pulling. “Not me, please! Please! Let me go!”

Dr. Kozak takes a few steps away from the three of them. Nicky can’t help it, watching the woman frantically try and break free, something inside him snaps. His eyes water and he feels everything all at once. It’s overwhelming and terrible and for the first time, he understands why Andy wanted to give up.

“You three will change the world. You have so many gifts to give.”

_“No!”_ Quyhn shrieks, her wrists bending in a horrible way as she writhes. “No! _NO!”_

Dr. Kozak leaves.

Quyhn’s screams do not.

***

“Remember, we will be met with more force than last time. They know that we are coming, and they will not give up Nicky and Booker easily.” Andy states, trying to remain as calm as she possibly can as she drives. “Copley, do you hear me?”

_“Yes, I do.”_ He says into their earpieces, Andy still not loving the tech in her ear. Nile insisted on them, and Andy understands the logic, but it doesn’t mean she doesn’t find any of it less annoying. Almost as annoying as the bulletproof vest strapped to her chest. _“Loud and clear.”_

Joe’s sitting next to her in the passenger seat, his hands wrapped around the hilt of his simitar. The curved blade is digging into the upholstery of the car, but he doesn’t seem to notice or care. Setting his chin against the hilt, he stares ahead. His eyes are distant, in another world. Andy doesn’t say anything. There’s really nothing she can.

It’s been a little over two weeks.

Joe’s thinned, forgoing meals despite Nile’s pleading. He paces, he plots, he does everything he can, and it’s not enough. Andy feels for him in a way she wished she never would have to. Having half of you ripped out. Not knowing in what state they will return to you.

Return.

Not for the first time that day, Andy thinks of Quyhn. The hurt, the anger. She knows she deserves it. Andy knows she has earned every drop of rage. But thinking of Nicky and Booker where they are, due to her, she doesn’t know what to do. How can she settle the war between her heart and her mind?

“We need to make sure we stick together. Joe, remember what we talked about?”

Andy waits for the affirmative, but it never comes.

He sits there, chin on his sword and staring out the window. His fingers are tapping against the blade, his rings clinking against the metal. God, she forgets he’s as old as he is sometimes. Joe has always had an exuberance that belied his age, but now Andy sees every one of his years.

“Nile, you will be taking up the rear, making sure that the hallways are clear as we move forward.”

“10-4.”

Andy eyes Joe.

It’s so unsettling how still he is. He’s not moving, he’s not smiling, he’s not even yelling. He’s just.. _still._

The moment they arrive on the road, Joe’s out the door of the car. Andy is sure to park a few blocks away, but he’s already standing, his scimitar unsheathed and standing exasperatedly, waiting for them.

Nile watches. “He going to be okay?”

Andy sucks in a breath, checking the chamber of her gun. “No,” she states. “He’s not. Keep an eye out for him.”

Marching next to him, Andy falls in line with the man she’s spent almost a thousand years with. He has this baseball cap on, his curls sticking out from the sides. She always gave him a hard time about it – especially since he had to wear sunglasses since he always wore it backwards. _“It was a gift from Nicky, boss. And I think it looks awesome.”_

_“As do I.” Nicky would always pipe up._

Andy would mutter something about the fact they always ganged up on her not fair and they would just laugh.

The three make their way up the road, the warehouse looming in the distance. _“I’m doing my best to unlock the front door for you guys,”_ Copley says in their ear. _“Do your best to keep a low profile as long as you can.”_

Andy eyes Joe, waiting for him to yell, but he doesn’t say anything. He merely walks ahead, his blade in his hand.

That’s when she notices it.

Strapped to his back is Nicky’s longsword. It’s sticking out from under his backpack, the hilt so familiar. Joe notices her eyeing it. “He’ll want it.” He states, the first words she’s heard from him in hours.

The three approach the opening of the warehouse. _“I’ve got four at the door.”_

Andy puts the silencer on her gun, standing next to the main entrance. Joe crouches on the other side with a quick nod. Kicking the door, Andy rushes in, firing four shots. Four bodies collapse on the ground. Their dressed in black garb similar to the guards at Merrick’s, slumping against the wall. She gives Joe a curt nod and he rushes past her, a rifle cocked against his shoulder.

_“You have more company coming.”_ Copley states. _“Looks like about seven.”_

“Hardly seems fair,” Andy mutters, taking her labrys from its sheath.

When the guards rush down the hall, it’s quick work. In fact, Andy doesn’t need to do much. Joe takes the lead and she lets him, lets him unleash his frustrations and panic on these men who have been sent to keep the love of his life captive. They fall like dominoes, sent to guard someone that wasn’t theirs.

It’s an amazing sight.

It’s easy to be blinded by Joe’s generosity and miss the storm brewing underneath. But ever since her conversation with him, the storm’s built and he became a man of lightning and fire. He unleased it on the guards, and they fell, one by one.

The warehouse it quiet.

“Where now?” Joe asks, pressing his hand against his ear. “Where’s Nicky?”

Copley doesn’t answer right away. The trio continues to move forward, but there’s something thrumming against Andy’s mind. “Copley, do you hear us?”

There’s a choke on the other end. _“Yes,”_ Copley states. _“Yes, I hear you.”_

Andy doesn’t like his hesitation. Joe’s storming through the building, kicking open door after door. When they reach the end of the hall, there’s a sign that says _LAB_ , so the group of them follow until they reach the last doorway.

Joe wastes no time, rushing through.

To nothing.

_“You are the only ones still alive.”_

Andy can see the moment Joe snaps. His eyes widen and he looks young and he rushes in the room to find a light switch. “Nicky?” Joe shouts, his words cracking. “Nicky, are you here? _Nicky!”_

Nile presses her hand against the switch, her free hand still wrapped around the gun.

The lab is empty.

No Nicky, no Booker.

Just empty beds and broken glass.

“Copley,” Andy seethes, her words low as she surveys the room. “Where are they? You said they’d be here.”

Joe rushes around the room, but there was no denying it. They aren’t there. He flips things over, shouts Nicky’s name over and over, speaking so quickly in Arabic that Andy can barely understand a word he’s saying.

_“They’re… not.”_

Joe freezes when Copley’s words are heard across the mics. His sword shakes in his grip, the fluorescents flickering ghostly against his skin.

_“I was incorrect. They knew we were looking. It was a… false report.”_

“They wanted to trap us.” Andy says, her words dark.

It’s when she breaks.

She’s remained calm. She’s remained intact. She’s remained what she needed to be for her family.

Andy spent the past two weeks making sure every crack was covered, every ounce of fear and panic was glossed over. She listened to Joe scream and pushed her nightmares of Quyhn aside.

But she shatters, breaking open like an exposed nerve.

Gripping the labrys in her hands, Andy swings it against one of the medical machines, her anger becoming a force. She screams, something feral and desperate, tears welling in her eyes as she takes down another machine. Another cabinet. Another bed, another million dollar piece of equipment.

She screams and she shouts at the world.

How _dare_ it, how _dare it_ take her family away when all they ever wanted to do was good. They wanted to give back, they wanted to punish those society refused to do so. Now, her family is splinted and fractured, and she’s no closer to bringing it back together than she was before.

Andy swears, she screams, she becomes something insane. She is engulfed by madness.

By the time she comes back, sparks are glinting across the room. Nile hasn’t moved from the doorway, her gun still cocked as she watches their backs, just like she was supposed to.

Joe still hasn’t moved.

Andy’s cheeks are wet with tears, her body is screaming in protest from injuries she was never able to heal from.

The silence of their missing family members is _loud_.

Joe looks up from the empty beds he’s been staring at.

“Let’s go.” He says, words hard and foreign, like he’s speaking a language she doesn’t know.

Before she can answer, he’s out the door.

***

Booker is losing his mind.

He’s absolutely losing his fucking _mind_.

It’s for several reasons. One, they injected him with dengue fever and he really wants to punch someone in the face. But more importantly, it’s because Quyhn is screaming.

_Screaming_.

She hasn’t stopped.

Ever since they strapped her to the bed, she’s shrieked and pulled against the restraints. She barely seems human anymore, the way she fights against it. Her wrists are covered in blood and her face is twisted into a snarl that never leaves and she _screams_.

Nicky’s been whispering something in Vietnamese for the past few hours, but Booker can’t understand a word of it. It’s a language no one ever spoke – he thinks sometimes they couldn’t. They couldn’t bring themselves to do so, so it falls deaf on his ears.

It’s not working though. Despite Nicky’s best efforts, Quyhn is lost. Booker can’t even look at it, let alone listen to it any longer. He feels like he’s crumbling in his own mind, sent to be destroyed by this situation. Here he is, sicker than he’s ever been, his self-proclaimed brother dying, and the love of Andy’s life is clawing her eyes out to be free.

He’s been through some shit, but this may actually take the cake. And he’s set such a higher bar for shit too.

Nicky’s soft singing stops for a bit, the guards lazily staring at them as if bored. “Heartless pricks.” Booker shouts at them, but there’s no response. He blinks away tears the more Quyhn screams, shaking his head at those who guard them.

“You have something to say?” One of them says to him, holding his gun to his chest.

“Actually, I already said it, you heartless piece of shit.” Booker shouts.

Then his face meets the business end of the butt of a gun. Booker blinks, seeing stars. There’s a shout and he feels his face wet with something he knows to be blood and he thinks he’s died. Except there’s no gaps, no missing pieces. When he opens his eyes, Booker realizes it isn’t _his_ blood, it’s the guards.

With a scalpel plunged in his neck.

“Wha—”

“Booker, let’s go!”

A lot is happening and he’s missing quite a bit of it.

But when he turns to the noise, he sees Nicky is standing, one hand still strapped to the table, the other somehow grabbing the gun that fell from the guard’s hands after he died. The man fires off shot after shot, bodies collapsing to the ground. Setting the gun down, Nicky quickly unties his bound hand. “Get up!” Nicky shouts.

_“How?”_ Booker bellows, incredulous and confused.

Nicky rushes over to Quyhn, who is still writhing in her bonds. Pressing his hands against her face, he dips his head down until their foreheads touch. She continues to fight and fight, until… her eyes reach Nicky’s. Booker lies there, staring at the intimate moment between the two of them, bound and stuck, and completely fuck all confused.

Quyhn stills and it’s quiet for the first time since she got there.

They look at each other and Booker thinks for the first time, that he never truly understood the lives they lived before him. He’d been lost in despair, but he watches Nicky carefully move around the woman like something fragile. The two are quiet and gentle and it’s the first time he’s thought of that of Quyhn.

Unwrapping her wrists, Nicky makes quick work of her bonds, Quyhn all but jumping up once she’s free. “Let’s go, Booker!” Nicky shouts as Quyhn sprints. But when he turns around and sees Booker still on the bed his eyes widen. “What are you doing?”

“What am _I_ doing? How the _fuck_ did you get out?”

“It was the plan!”

_“What plan?”_

“We can’t let Quyhn be stuck in a box, again! We must get free!” Nicky lifts his hands and the bones are broken.

He’d been singing to distract from breaking his fingers.

The slow serum allowed him enough to keep them bent.

Jesus Christ, Booker needs a drink.

“Useless man!” Nicky shouts in Italian, going into a litany of swears.

“You have to say the fucking plan for there to be a plan, Nicky!” Booker hisses.

There’s thundering footsteps resounding in the hallway and Nicky’s head shoots up. “Go!” He shouts to Quyhn. “Get out of here!”  
  


“You go with her, Nicky!” Booker says, struggling against his own restraints. “Just… get out, and then come and find me.”

“They will bury you, Booker.” Nicky snaps, reaching over to where the man is. “When are you going to understand that I am _not_ leaving you, that I am—”

There’s a shot.

Nicky’s on the floor.

He stares unseeing up at the ceiling, blood dribbling from his forehead. “No!” Booker shouts.

He waits.

He waits for Nicky to revive.

The blood is dripping and he’s not moving. “You fuckers!” Booker shouts, a panic coursing through him unlike before. “You gave him that fucking serum, why would you shoot him in the fucking head!”

He doesn’t move. Nicky’s legs are bent underneath himself, hands outstretched, and he was trying to unbuckle the restraints. “Nicky, wake up!” Booker bellows. “Nicky, _wake up!”_

Nicky doesn’t rouse, he simply bleeds.

“Where’s Subject Three?” Dr. Kozak cries, rushing in.

“You fucking _monster_!” Booker shouts. “You were working with her, you made deals and now she’s nothing more than a number to you?”

Dr. Kozak pays him no mind. “Get the restraints we just received for this one. We _cannot_ have anymore escapes. This research is far too important.”

Booker truly feels insane.

They lift Nicky’s slack body from the ground, his arms hanging limply at the side. They throw him on the bed, shifting his body around like a doll. Booker cries out Nicky’s name over and over, but the man is unresponsive, his body still.

Then, he sees a bullet dig it’s way out of his forehead and collapse on the floor. Booker can almost sob with relief at the clink of the metal, Nicky’s eyes still dead and empty. It’s awful.

As much as they die, Booker’s never really used to it. He’s not used to seeing someone he lives with lay slacken on the floor. It reminds him too much of his kids, too much of his wife, too much of his grief.

A few guards are carrying metal cars over to where Nicky’s lies, his fingers twitching. “Quickly,” Dr. Kozak states. “I’ll give him more of the serum, this is a more concentrated dose, so it should slow his healing even more – perhaps even sedate him.”

They latch the bars against the bed, wrapping them across his body. His ankles, knees, waist, chest, arms, head.

Neck.

“Make it tight enough so he can’t talk anymore.” Dr. Kozak states. “Can’t have the two of them plotting.”

“Fuck you!” Booker bellows from the side. “Let him heal, let him fucking—”

He screams every obscenity that he can think of, but they don’t react. Instead, he’s forced to watch them build an iron coffin around Nicky. Around…

His brother.

Booker’s jaw clenches.

He understands.

He understands Andy’s look _not like this_ , he understands Joe’s _you piece of shit_ , he understands Nicky’s _if I loved you less, maybe I could’ve forgiven you easier._ He understand the iron coffin, he understands Quyhn’s madness, he understands the grief and responsibility of immortality. As Nicky is chained next to him, he feels a clarity through his fever he never has had before.

Booker _understands_.

And he’s fucking pissed.

He’s ready to light the world on fire.

***

No one talks to him when they’re at Copley’s house.

Actually, that’s not true. Copley tries to say something, but Joe thinks Andy must look at him, because the man stops.

Joe sets his gun and scimitar down, pulling off his backpack. Then…

Nicky’s sword.

Joe holds it in his hands. Even in the sheath, it’s like he can see the blade. He sees Nicky wield it, fighting the many battles the two have held over the years. Joe can’t bring himself to put it down, so he doesn’t. He moves to the guest room Copley gave him, taking the sword with him.

Lying it on the bed, Joe rummages around the small bag he put together before they decided to stay with the man who tried to put them all in a box. Joe is angry and he’s lost, but right now, he feels numb. He doesn’t know how to be anymore, the absence of Nicky not giving him clarity. Some people say that what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.

What a complete load of bullshit.

What doesn’t kill you still fucking hurts.

Pulling out a shirt from the bag, Joe collapses to his knees.

It was the shirt Nicky was wearing before they went to Paris to find Booker. It’s a shirt that Joe’s teased him about many times. Nicky was never a materialistic man, but cared even less for clothes. Sometimes Joe wondered if he wore the most generic threads just to tease him because Nicky likes to poke fun when he can.

It’s basic and a dark green, which made his eyes look like starlight. Gripping the fabric close to his chest, Joe inhales, trying to draw the last moments of Nicky’s scent to bring him back to center. It’s a ghost – a whisper.

What a horrible existence, he thinks, if it’s only comprised of hints of Nicky.

He has no interest in it.

There’s a sob and it takes a moment for him to realize it’s coming from him.

He’s felt rage, he’s felt chaos, but this is a monster in itself.

This is sorrow, this is despair, this is grief with the volume turned up. Everything is painful and sharp. His hands are shaking as he holds Nicky’s shirt closer to him, and he shatters like glass. He doesn’t know how to put the pieces back because that was always Nicky’s job. Nicky, who would turn and hold him when he felt himself slipping, Nicky, who would wrap his arms around his chest and breathe into his neck. Nicky who was his other half, who he would gladly spend eternity with, if Destiny was kind enough.

As it seems, Destiny isn’t kind.

So he holds Nicky’s shirt, trying to remember what it’s like to feel whole. To not feel like there’s a parasite within his stomach, eating him alive with grief.

There’s a loud slam against the door, shaking Joe out of his panic. Joe’s eyes snap open and he chokes out a breath, entire body trembling.

Reaching under the pillow, he grabs the gun that he’s gotten used to sleeping with. He steps quietly out of the room, seeing Andy, Nile, and Copley standing at the door, shell-shocked. He carefully moves in the shadows, gun pointed at the door.

A figure stands there, shadowed by the dark of night.

Andy’s not moving.

Nile has her own gun out and Copley stares.

The figure moves forward into view.

A woman stands before them, drenched from rain pouring outside, eyes red and manic.

Joe’s aim falters as Andy whispers one word.

_“Quyhn.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I know that was a lot! BUT, it was setting up a lot of things
> 
> I’m trying to draw parallels between Andy x Joe and Quyhn x Nicky, which is why Nicky ended up in his own cage by the end. And I wanted Nicky and Booker to really have it out, the two of them furious at each other.
> 
> Next chapter is a huge turning point for them. I’m very excited to write it.
> 
> There will definitely be fallout with Quyhn now a part of the group. Whether they can trust her, how to get Nicky and Booker out… But I really wanted Nicky to be like ‘you idiot, I will NOT LEAVE YOU JFC’ and finally Booker’s like ‘ooooooohhhhhh, okay…’ lol Also, I thought it’d be funny if Nicky is SO used to Joe knowing exactly what he’s doing, he escaped and then was totally offended Booker didn’t try and get out.
> 
> I hope you liked it! More than half-way done 😊


	5. You Were My Crown

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi loves! I really appreciate you reading this and being on this journey with me! I’m so excited to write mildly unhinged Quyhn with the team, who is trying to figure out if she’s alright. 
> 
> I was excited to write this because I come from The 100 fandom, and if you are in that too, you know last week was a rough one and decidedly the END of my participation in that fandom. So I’m excited to write something else and new, and not have my heart broken.
> 
> Let’s do this <3 <3 <3

CHAPTER FIVE

_You Were My Crown_

Joe has his gun out.

He’s not really sure when it happened.

He stands in the hallway, gun drawn, pointing it at Quyhn, his eyes darting around. He can’t remember the last time his heart raced this fast for anyone but Nicky, but here he is, his adrenaline shot and his gun out. He can see Andy still and Nile standing there, unsure of what to do.

This is why they shot him in the head.

He understands, but he hates it. That’s the most tragic thing of all – he understands it. Andy’s mortal and forever linked to Quyhn. Asking her to be cold and collected in this moment is asking a wave not to crash. And Nile, god… she was so young in so many ways. He could see how she slotted into the team without skipping a beat, but she only has been on the earth for so long. She doesn’t understand humanity the same way he does – like poetry and art, swirling around his mind like colors in a Degas.

So, he stays in the shadows, his gun trained on Quyhn, who stands in the doorway soaked from the rain and eyes manic.

“You may as well come out, Joe. We all know you are waiting.” Quyhn’s cool voice almost seems foreign to him, like a distant memory. Joe supposes maybe it is, stepping out of the shadows without lowering his gun. Her eyes flit in his direction, unseeing. “I suppose I deserve that.”

“What are you doing here?” Joe asks, looking around for any telltale signs for attack. He can’t see anything, which makes him even more panicked. His eyes dart around, looking at the windows. At any moment, he expects more grenades to fly through the windows, his gun pointing at any point of entry. They should’ve used his and Nicky’s safehouse – sure, Nicky is still upset over Andy destroying his cooking knives, but at least there were minimal windows. “How many people?”

“It is just me.” Quyhn states, stepping into the house. Her eyes are watering and she’s shaking. Trembling really, if he thinks about it clearly. He wonders if it’s the cold or if it’s the fact that they’re here and she’s in the same space. “I come alone.”

“That’s what we thought last time.” Nile states, her own gun drawn. Not for the first time, Joe thinks how appreciative he is of her, and how she came to them right before everything fell apart. She doesn’t trust Quyhn and it makes Joe feel less guilty for not doing so. “So don’t be surprised if I don’t believe a damn word you say.”

Quyhn tilts her head. “You’re the new one, the one from my dreams.”

Nile shifts, but she doesn’t say anything.

“You were the one who made sure they got out of the labs the first time, it seemed very impressive. In fact, you and Booker are the ones who actually made me realize what was going on. You both were in my dreams.” Quyhn continues as if she’s reading something as mundane as a grocery list. “You are quite good, seeing as you are an infant.”

“Infant?” Nile asks, ruffling a bit. “Who are you calling—”

“Nile, stand down.” Andy says quietly, her eyes not leaving Quyhn’s.

No one moves.

“Are you going to invite me in?” Quyhn asks.

“Have you forgotten the last time you were invited in somewhere?” Joe snaps. He doesn’t lower his gun. In fact, he wishes he had his scimitar near, but it’s next to Nicky’s broadsword on the bed.

“Technically, I was not invited there, either.” Quyhn shakes of her coat, now drenched with rain, and drops it to the ground. “But I have information that I have a feeling you’ll want.”

When everyone remains at the standstill, Copley moves forward and bends down to pick up the wet coat. “Why don’t we move this to—”

“Do _not touch my things!”_ Quyhn shouts, rushing over to grab his arm. She wrenches it behind his back and Copley lets out a shout.

“Stop!” Nile rushes over and Quyhn lets go and pulls a knife out of her back pocket.

“Enough!” Andy shouts. “Nile, put the gun down! Copley, are you alright?”

“Ah yes, fine.” Copley states, rubbing his wrist. “Nothing a good warm bath couldn’t fix.”

“Joe—” Andy states, turning to him.

“No.”

“Joe, put the gun away.”

Joe shakes his head. “I will not.”

“I do not mind it.” Quyhn offers, moving gracefully through the living room as if she hadn’t just had an outburst. “I remember what you and Nicoló were like.”

“Are like.” Joe corrects through gritted teeth.

He’s having a hard time rationalizing the woman before him. The woman he loved for so long, and mourned for longer. Except she took the love of his life away and now it’s been two weeks. Well, seventeen days. Each one more painful than the next, every dead end hardening his heart.

Quyhn moves toward him. “I know you do not trust me, Yusuf. But I owe Nicoló a debt, so I will not be moving to harm you.”

That makes Joe startled. “W-What?” He asks, eyes flitting to the rest of the team. “What do you mean?”

Quyhn reaches out to where the gun is aimed right at her head. With a gentle move, she moves it further down until hanging at his sides. Turning around to Copley as if she hadn’t just had him in a lock, she asks, “Could I trouble you for some tea?”

Copley is a couple steps away from her jacket. “Um, of course. Why don’t we take this discussion into the living room? There are more comfortable chairs and I have a feeling we’ll be here for a while.”

Joe’s having a hard time with it all.

By the time they all get settled, he has a mug of tea in front of him and he’s sitting close to Andy. He doesn’t trust Quyhn, and trusts Andy’s self-preservation even less. His hand remains on his gun at his side, his shoulder touching Andy. He’s worried about the woman – Joe isn’t sure she’s blinked since they all sat down, placing herself across the coffee table from Quyhn. Quyhn doesn’t seem particularly bothered by the tension, sipping the tea and offering Copley a polite thank you. Nile throws Joe a deranged look when she does so and Joe doesn’t even know how he should respond.

“So,” Joe starts because he feels like he’s about to burst out of his skin. “You said you owe Nicky a debt.”

Quyhn looks up from her tea as if she forgot they were there. Her expression is a little manic and more wild, her hands tightly curling around the mug. “Yes,” She says, her word hoarse. “Yes, I do.”

Joe waits for her to continue, but she doesn’t. “Quyhn, we need—”

“They decided why have only two immortals when you can have three?” She continues, eyes distant and watering. “Somehow the doctor found out about… my past. I do not know, perhaps Booker and Nicoló were discussing it. Next thing I knew, I was in a bed next to them.”

Joe swallows and feels Andy tense next to her. He doesn’t dare sneak a look at the woman.

“I-I do not… remember much after that. I just remember they strapped me to a bed and I _fought_.” Quyhn takes a sip of her mug. “I was trapped. Again. I-I could not be trapped again. I could not spend… anymore time in a box. I could not—”

She closes her eyes and a tear falls.

Like that, the anger slowly filters away.

Joe sees her.

He sees his sister in arms. He sees the woman who would put up with his poetry when Andy would do nothing more than tell him to shut up. The woman who shared his love of markets, the woman whose hair he would twist into beautiful braids.

He sees his sister, broken and scared, and finally free.

Joe takes his hand off of the gun.

“Then, Nicoló was _there._ ”

Joe shoots a look at Nile.

“I do not know how he got out of his bindings, but he was there. Standing over me.”

“He got out?” Joe asks, all but choking. “He—”

“He did not.” Quyhn cuts him off. “He went for Booker, and I do not believe they made it out.”

Joe stills, his body trembling. He holds his tea as if it grounds him. He can feel himself losing his grip on everything, losing his grip on reality.

Again.

Nicky made the same choice _again_.

He doesn’t care for how vicious his anger feels, but he feels every part of it.

A hand is placed on his forearm and Joe startles, turning to see Andy is looking at him. Joe tries to pull himself together, he tries to calm down, but he’s finding he can’t. He can’t, even with Andy sitting next to him. He feels wild, like he needs to _do_ something, but he doesn’t know what. He thinks Andy may say something to him, but he doesn’t even know what language it is, let alone what she’s saying.

At one point, he stands.

Joe’s not entirely sure when that point is, but he does it. He’s standing and everyone’s looking at him and he’s preparing for something that he isn’t sure of. Running his hands down his face, Joe tries to clear his throat, but can’t.

“Joe—”

“I _know_.” He breathes, trying to calm himself down. “ _I know.”_

“They are not currently getting along.” Quyhn says and it’s such a strange thing to say that it snaps him out of it. “I heard Nicoló raise his voice, which I honestly do not recall ever hearing.”

“Nicky yelled at Booker?” Nile gapes.

“Well, he raised his voice.”

“That’s Nicky yelling.” Andy offers, her gaze still on Joe. “Booker deserves a talking to from him.”

“Deserves more than that.” Joe mutters.

“I understand your anger with the man, but what I do not understand is your confusion at Nicoló’s actions.” Quyhn says to Joe. “It is very consistent with the man I remember.”

“I’m _not_ —” Joe shouts and he has to suck in a breath to calm himself. “I’m not confused by Nicky’s actions. I am not confused or do I think that he made the wrong choice.”

“Then what are you?”

“I’m _furious_!” Joe bellows.

The room grows quiet. Joe runs his hand through his curls. “I’m so angry,” he admits.

Admits his shame. His secret.

“You’re angry with Nicoló?” Quyhn asks and Andy shakes her head slightly. The woman doesn’t catch it.

“I am angry with _myself_.” Joe snaps. “Because of _course_ Nicky would make that decision, of _course_ he would go back for Booker. Of _course_ he would escape to free you, only to be caught again, of course, of course, _of course_!” He’s shouting at Quyhn, but not really, his words filling up the room like water for him to drown in. “I know that man like I know my heart because he _is_ my heart and how could I have—”

Joe flashes back to that day.

Booker running off. Andy leading the charge with Nile not far behind. He turned to Nicky and told him to hurry, and ran after the women.

“How could I not have known it was coming?” He asks, blinking a few tears away. “I should’ve… I _knew_. I never should’ve turned around.”

“Joe.”

Joe shakes his head. “I never should’ve—”

_“Joe.”_

“I know him like I know my own heart.”

_“Yusuf.”_ Then Andy’s in front of him and she has her hands on his face. “This is not your fault.”

“Then who am I to blame? You always said that we are the owners of our actions, and we must make sure to leave a gentle path. What is my path, Andy?”

Andy’s eyes water and Joe sees every one of her years, however many they may be. “Your path is with us. Come join me on the couch and you can ask Quyhn every question you need to know. And we will make a plan.”

Quyhn frowns. “I don’t know how much it’ll help to hear about the time in the lab.”

Joe’s head snaps in her direction. “Tell me.”

“I don’t think—”

“I must know.”

***

Booker waits.

He waits because Nicky hasn’t fully revived yet. Whatever they injected him with before putting him in his own iron coffin must be strong, because it’s taking longer than he’s ever seen. If the man wasn’t hooked up to machines, he would be panicked that they actually killed him. It’s hard to look at, the iron bars tightly wound around him. He can see where the man’s skin is already turning pink where the iron’s cutting him, his body too slow healing to do anything about it.

Booker can tell the moment Nicky is fully alert, his eyes shooting open and his hands in fists. He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. Nicky chokes and his eyes dart. He tries again to speak, again and again, but nothing.

“Nicky,” Booker says, watching the man start to spiral, panic clear on his face. “Nicky, listen to me. Nicky. _Nicky!”_

Nothing’s getting through to him. Booker switches to Italian, even using a few of the old words he learned listening to him and Joe. His heart monitor is racing and Booker is once again struck by the inhumanity of those guarding them. They don’t do anything, they don’t move, Nicky’s heart ratcheting higher and higher—

“Nicoló, calm the fuck down!” Booker exclaims a little more panicked then he meant, but given the situation, hopes Nicky will forgive him. “Listen, okay! You’re having a panic attack, so you need to focus on something. Something that isn’t what you’re feeling you need to shock yourself out of it!”

Nicky doesn’t calm.

“Fuck,” Booker snaps, restraining against his bonds. “Are you guys really not going to do anything?” Booker asks the guards. The silence is the response he gets. “Absolute fuckers, this is madness.”

Booker thinks of the many panic attacks he’s had over the years, running through them, trying to think of something that could help. Except he can’t slap the man, or kiss him or whatever.

“Did I ever tell you that I ate a crow once?”

Nicky’s hands still. He’s shaking and Booker can see him try to turn to look at him, but the bars around his head and neck aren’t lettings him do anything.

“That’s what I thought your reaction would be you, pretentious foodie bastard. In my defense, I was left to die and there really isn’t that much around in a Russian winter. It was really gross. So I suppose what I’m saying is that, as much as I compliment your cooking, Nicky, remember my bar is really low.”

He watches Nicky’s chest heave as if he’s trying to laugh, and then his hand moves and Nicky holds up a middle finger. Booker pretends to be shocked. “What sort of man of God are you, Nicoló? How disappointing he’d find you!”

Booker slips into the old tease he’s had with Nicky for years, marveling at how easy it is. He always thought it would be hundreds of years before he felt comfortable giving the man a hard time, but they slip back into it. “Nicky, I know it’s hard, but I need to remain calm. They’ve given you some strong shit and I don’t want to freak you out, but you’re not coming back to life easily anymore. I don’t know what they gave you or how it works, so, I… I-I need to you stay alive long enough for Andy and Joe to find us, understood?”

Nicky opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. Booker can see his eyes reddening and the madness he must feel. It’s humiliating, degrading, they’re treating the lot of them worse than animals. Booker has half a mind to be so obnoxious they put him in a box too, but both of them on the edge of despair seems like a bad call. God, he never thought he’d have to be the optimistic one of the duo.

“Why don’t we do this?” Booker says, blinking away his own tears. “We just need a way for you to talk without you actually talking. Shouldn’t be hard, right?”

Nicky flips him off again, but closes his eyes and a tear slides down his cheek.

“I know, I know, fuck me. I have a thought,” Booker says, staring at the middle finger. “Tap once for yes and twice for no. I mean, you barely speak in extended sentences anyway.”

The middle finger stays up.

“Come on! We know Joe is the chatty one in that duo.” Booker’s talking just to talk. The words are flowing out of him and he barely can make sense of it. Except Nicky’s heartrate is going down and so it seems to be working in some way. So Booker talks in a way he’s never really spoken to anyone. He can see Nicky trying to look at him, but can’t. It honestly makes it a little easier.

So Booker talks.

He talks and talks. About things he’s never really shared with anyone. He tells Nicky about his wife – but not the tragedies. He tells him how she used to smell and they had a little house that was barely big enough for them and their sons. And about how he actually was a God-fearing man until he found out he couldn’t die and lost his entire family. He tells Nicky about his dog, and how much he actually loves animals and considered getting one to help him through his exile from the group.

“There’s a beach back home that I used to walk along with my wife and sons when they were little. I haven’t been back there, since everything, to be honest. I’m afraid to go. Because I remember it so fondly, and it seems like it’s the one place that hasn’t been tainted by all this. I can still see my wife’s face, hear my children’s laughter. You know, before you and Joe, I didn’t really believe in soulmates. But… I loved my wife with every piece of my heart. I never meant to live past her, and especially this many years.” Booker laughs. “You would’ve liked her, Nicky. She could look at flour and milk and turn it into the best bread you’ve ever eaten. Yes, I’m including yours in this, sorry Nicky. It was just… magic, my wife.”

Booker laughs uncomfortably and blinks tears away. “I’d like… to go back one day. Maybe I could get closure or maybe, I dunno.” Booker turns his head. “Will you come with me? When we’re out of here?”

One tap.

“Thank you. I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness, and I don’t when I’m ever going to make it up to you, but thank you.” Booker bites his lip. “Do you think you’ll ever be able to forgive me?”

One tap.

“But you haven’t yet.”

Two taps.

He nods. “I know. I put Joe and Andy in danger. I’m truly sorry. I cannot remember if I ever really apologized. Andy told me Nile said an apology was an acceptable punishment.” He snorts. “She’s so young. And Hopeful. God, I hope it wears off soon.” He hesitates. “Or, maybe not. I’d like to experience a little hope once my exile’s over, I think.”

It’s easier to talk about what he’s feeling when the person can’t look at him. “I-I never truly understood you guys. The panic, the fear. I thought it was insane – you could just come back to life. But it was all selfish.” Booker sighs. “But enough of that. I’m going to ask you some questions I’ve always wanted to know. Have you ever been back to your hometown?”

One tap.

“Huh, I just assumed it would be tough for everyone. Maybe I’m just weird.”

One tap.

“Shut up, Nicky.” Booker snorts. “Oh – you have to be honest, do you actually like the cassolette I make?”

Nicky freezes. Two taps.

“I fucking knew it! You are _such_ a snob, Nicky! That is a family recipe.”

Nicky’s mouth curls up.

“Do you like cassolette at _all_?”

One tap.

“Jesus Christ, Nicoló, you just don’t like mine? That’s it, you’re dead to me.”

Nicky huffs and Booker takes that as a laugh. “I cannot believe this betrayal. Do you like Andy’s cooking?”

Nicky clearly looks confused.

“Well, I know she doesn’t cook, but every once and a while she’ll make a frozen pizza. Which do you prefer – frozen pizza or my cassolette.” Nicky makes a face. “Oh right, do you prefer frozen pizza?”

One tap.

“You fucking fuck liar, Nicoló! You kiss Joe with that lying mouth, you son of a bitch!”

He can hear a strangled snort.

“God, I forget you can be such an asshole.” Booker breathes. “You like to talk a big game about being good, but you’re just as much of a shit as the rest of us.”

One tap.

“Well, at least you acknowledge it, that’s the first step.” Booker snorts. “God, I want a drink. Like not just one drink, but many. Give me all the alcohol.” He beams, his anxiety settling a bit when he sees Nicky’s heart rate is back to normal. It’s selfish, but he wants to ask one more question.

Preparing himself, he turns his head. “Did I break your heart?”

Nicky doesn’t respond right away. Instead, his smile falls and he stares at the ceiling.

One tap.

***

“Are we sure this is a good idea?”

When Nile asks the question, Andy can’t help but remind herself that she’s not used to this. Andy checks her gun and then checks it again. “Has someone woken Quyhn?” Andy asks, choosing to ignore Nile for the time being. Joe hasn’t spoken since he rose, placing his cap on his head and rifling through his bag of weapons and triple checking the clips.

“I walked past her room and the bed was made, so I assume she’s awake.”

“I did not sleep in there.” Quyhn states, startling the group of them. “I have spent long enough without the sky, I do not like to be inside.” She shoulders her bow, peeking through a quiver of metal arrows. “Also, I would like to say, once we get Nicoló and Booker back, I will no longer be traveling with you. You will not see me as a threat, but not as a friend either. I will pay my debt and be done.”

She doesn’t tear her gaze away from Andy.

Andy sees the woman who she fought many battles with, the woman who she planned on dying with. It hurts her – it hurts her to hear the woman speak. Andy nods because she isn’t sure of anything else to do.

Nile catches her gaze and steps forward to place a hand on Quyhn’s shoulder. “But wouldn’t it be easier if we all stayed—”  
  


With incredible speed, Quyhn swings around so that her hand is on the back of the woman’s head and she shoves her against the wall and presses. “Do not _touch me!”_ The woman screams next to Nile’s head.

“Quyhn, please.” Andy breathes, putting her hands up.

Quyhn’s eyes flit in her direction and she lets go. “Please do not sneak up on me.”

Nile winces and straightens. “Trust me, I will not.”

“We should leave now.” Copley states, stepping into the hallway and eyeing the now-broken piece of art on the ground of his house. “I detect no movement in the lab.”

“Again, I have to ask,” Nile says, pulling glass out of her braids. “Is it smart to got he lab if we know they’ve been moved? Wouldn’t they be waiting for us?”

“It’s our only lead.” Andy responds coolly. “They may not be there anymore, but they could’ve left something. And all we need is one thing. _One_ thing that we didn’t know before.”

“And you’re _sure_ you don’t know where they would’ve taken them after you escaped?” Joe asks Quyhn for what feels like the thousandth time.

To her credit, and especially since she just threw Nile against the wall, Quyhn answers calmly. “Yes, they did not tell me their backup lab location. All I know is that they will not stay in the same location, after Merrick Labs.”

“She’s right, too.” Copley states. “I’ve checked the address you gave me and there was no movement inside. It seems deserted.”

“Doesn’t mean it’s not a trap.” Nile insists. “We can’t just go in without really knowing—”

“We’re doing this.” Andy states. “We’ve been searching for far too long with no results. It’s the only place we _know_ they have been, and if that means we’ll have to fight our way to it, so be it.”

The corners of Joe’s mouth turn up and he nods at her, something fierce and loving behind his eyes. That said, Andy knows Nile has a point. It feels like a foolish move, because she isn’t even sure if Quyhn isn’t lying to them now. Sure, maybe Nicky did save her and maybe she feels a debt, but only weeks ago, she was fine with locking them all up. Andy knows this is in the back of everyone’s mind, but she can’t focus on that now.

The drive is a long one – the team not able to get any direct flights and Quyhn not being a fan of modern travel. Andy drives just because it’s a thing she does, but keeps Quyhn next to her. One, because she wants to keep an eye on the woman, and two, because if she has to be next to Joe while he mutters for her to go faster, she’d probably stab him.

The lab itself isn’t as impressive as Merrick’s, but it is a little more indiscreet. It’s moments like this when she wishes Booker was here with his C4, relying on Nile’s ammunitions expertise to gain entry. She’s good, but there’s nothing like that cynical French bastard with two bricks of C4 in his hands.

The group clears the lab relatively quickly – fortune seems to be on their side because there’s no one. The labs are wiped clean and it’s as empty as Quyhn said it’d be.

“Down this hall.” Quyhn states, waving the group to follow.

Andy’s startled when the woman takes the lead, feeling a little out of sorts as she follows. Quyhn curls around the lab like an expert, and it occurs to Andy she is. It’s terrible she is, but there was something inside her that hated them.

Andy understood.

“This is the lab.” Quyhn states, flicking the lights on. “They kept the two together once you guys escaped.”

Except there are three beds.

Quyhn is staring at it, the way the restraints hang off the sides and Andy knows she’s lost. In that moment, she realizes Quyhn was telling the truth. She sees the way the woman’s eyes get lost and how she quakes.

She’s not the only one stuck by the sight. Joe carefully takes a step forward on the bed in the middle, bars hanging from the sides. “Why does this bed have bigger restraints?”

Quyhn blinks, pulled out of her reverie. “Ah, I’m certain they were not pleased he was able to get out of the others. Plus, he was causing issues for the doctors. Apparently they did not care for his words.”

“Have they met Booker?” Nile asks, incredulous. “Have they – have they met him?”

“Words that are true and painful are much more difficult to hear than the word ‘fuck’ screamed at you in different languages.” Andy offers.

She places a hand on Joe’s shoulder, who is still staring at Nicky’s bed. He flinches, and then relaxes. Joe offers her a weak smile, and then moves on. The entire room has been wiped down – it’s as if they were never there. Andy talks herself into opening the fridges, and is almost relieved to see that nothing’s in there. “They did a good job.” Andy comments idly, but no one responds.

_“Nile, do you see a machine in the corner?”_

Copley’s voice resounds over their comms and Andy swears under her breath. She’s still not entirely used to it, and it’s annoying. “Yeah,” Nile says. “Can you get me into it?”

_“What do you take me for?”_

Andy rolls her eyes at that, continuing to search through the shelves and freezers. “You will not find anything.” Quyhn states, stepping next to her. “They will not be foolish enough to leave any samples.”

“So they’re taking pieces of them?”

Quyhn had told the group broad strokes of the work being done, but when Joe had paled and was shaking in a way that didn’t look particularly healthy and when Quyhn started losing her grip on sanity, they had to call it a night. “Yes, in a way.” Quyhn says quietly, out of earshot of Joe, who is searching everything with a fervor. “Also injecting them with disease and seeing how they heal. It is not pleasant.”

Something sickening fills her stomach and Andy has to close her eyes. “Have they died?”

“A few times.” Quyhn says casually. “But they’re trying to make sure they don’t. It’s better for their research.”

“Better for their research,” Andy repeats breathlessly. She wants to kill someone, but there’s no one around to do so. _This_ is the disgusting underbelly of humanity she’s so sick of.

“You have not changed much, Andromache.” Quyhn says, startling Andy out of the well of rage she’s found herself trapped in. “You are just like I remember. I think it would be easier if you were a different person. I would be able to hate you more.”

That throws Andy off. “I—”

“I was not sure what I was coming back to. When I managed to get out, I had planned to not find you. I wanted something peaceful. But then I saw flashes of Booker and Nile and you with them, and it made me so _angry_. I saw you laughing and I wanted you to feel what I felt. To be trapped. To be…”

“Alone.” Andy finishes. “Quyhn—”

Quyhn puts her hand up. “I have no interest in reliving any of it. You exiled Booker, you must understand.”

“More than you know.” Andy replies, words drifting out to sea. “There has not been a day that’s gone by that I have not dreamt of you.”

“Nor I, you.” Quyhn mutters, closing her eyes. “Except, after time went on, you became my nightmare, pretending to be a dream.”

Andy’s eyes water, and she wants to do something. Reach out, hold her, scream, let the woman yell? She finds the nerve to bring up her hand and—

_“Got ‘em.”_

“What?” Joe snaps from the corner. He’s next to Nile before any of them can register it, tearing the two out of their own world they just built for themselves. “Wait, do you mean—”

Nile beams at Joe. “He means, we fucking _got them.”_

***

He can’t breathe.

He feels like someone caged, something wild, something manic, something _inhuman_. Every part of himself seems to be drifting away. Nicky tries his best to remain stoic, listening to Booker ramble beside him, but nothing has ever prepared him for how he feels now. It’s like he’s no longer in his own body. The metal digs against his skin, he can’t talk, he can’t _breathe_ , he can’t think. It’s as if he’s running and he’s always trying to catch his breath, but nothing is enough.

They inject him with something and every part of his body is screaming. It’s pain unlike he’s ever felt, whatever serum they gave him doing its job and it simply. Cannot. Heal.

Nicky never doubted Joe.

It’s the one thing he knows to be true. They always said the two of them would go together, and it’s a truth he’s lived his life on.

For the first time in his life, he wonders if he’s a liar. That all the times he told Joe they are _going together_ , fate had something else planned for him. It’s horrible, despicable – for so many things they gave the world, to have it taken from them.

He feels the fever overtaking him, Nicky feeling out of his body entirely. He can’t move his head, but his eyes roll around, skin slick with sweat and sliding against the metal.

_“My heart,”_ he hears Joe’s voice and Nicky could almost sob with relief. _“My heart, please stay with me.”_

Nicky swallows, trying to catch his breath, but finds he still cannot. _“I am trying, my love. With every piece of me.”_

_“We promised each other. We promised.”_

_“I know,”_ Nicky murmurs. _“We go together.”_

_“We go together.”_

His voice is like music, like the whisper of a kiss on his lips. His heart stutters and his brain feels like it’s melting, and he thinks he hears someone shouting something.

_“I would spare you of any hurt, I would sacrifice everything for you, my love.”_ Nicky tells the voice. It’s as if he can feel Joe’s hand against his cheek. It’s beautiful and warm, and for a moment, he doesn’t feel like a caged animal. _“All for you.”_

_“Then you must stay.”_

_“I never wanted to leave.”_

_“Stay.”_

_“I—”_

“Fuck, he’s crashing! Someone get Dr. Kozak in here now, she wanted him alive for the results. If he dies and comes back, she’s going to be pissed. Maybe she can keep him—”

“Nicky! You son of a bitch, you stay with me!” Booker’s sounding a little manic and he’s speaking in French so quickly, his fevered brain can barely translate it. He speaks quicker when something’s upsetting him, and swear words sprinkle throughout his sentences. “I will kill you!”

Nicky chokes a laugh and thinks that’s counterintuitive. He opens his mouth to say so, but the fever takes him.

***

“You know the drill.” Andy says, gun in hand.

He does.

He knows it. Joe stands in the field, an unassuming building a few yards away. They’ve already cut through the guards, leaving no traces like ghosts in the wind. He feels Nicky’s sword against his back, and thinks this is it.

Nineteen days.

Nineteen was more than enough.

Andy goes over the plan again, Joe half-listening. There’s only one thought truly on his mind:

He will see his Nicoló today.

Then they all will burn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: ALMOST OVER!
> 
> Yup, next chapter is THE chapter! I’m actually really excited to write it because there’s a handful of things I have planned.
> 
> Also, Joe’s still pissed with Booker, but basically Booker and Nicky had this forced therapy, and everyone will kinda be like “??????” Thank you for reading loves!


	6. Now I'm In Exile

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi my loves! Thank you so much for sticking with me this long. This is The Rescue Chapter! I’ve been so excited to write this. Let’s do it! <3 <3 <3

CHAPTER SIX

_Now I’m In Exile_

“What would you sacrifice for God?”

Nicoló sits at the feet of his parish, waiting for the final word. His hair is tied a the nape of his neck and he feels the weight of his sword on his back. The man knows the answer. He knows what he should say. It’s been engrained in him his entire life. He wants to wield the blade against people who come against God. He wants to fight for the morality of the world.

Nicoló stands before answering. The Priest above him startles at the gesture, but Nicoló wants him to know. Know his passion, know how much he means it.

Because he does. If there’s something that Nicoló knows about himself, it’s that he feels everything so profoundly, that it takes over his whole body. The man often wonders if he is destined to feel so much that, it would be akin of fire. Something that filled his body until it took over every part of him.

“What would you give, Nicoló, for that of which you love?”

That’s how he wanted to live. He wanted to live fully, or nothing at all.

_“Everything_.”

***

He hasn’t moved in a while.

It’s beginning to piss Booker off.

Well, it’s actually freaking him out, but when he’s freaked out, it pisses him off. It pisses him off because Nicky is stiller than he’s ever seen the man. Which is saying something, because Nicky is usually still, the years of being their sniper engrained in his bones until he’s a few steps away from being a statue. Booker always wondered if that was a part of being immortal – slowly growing still. Then he thinks of Joe and how animated he is, and concludes that it may be a Nicky thing.

The man waits for the kill shot.

That’s what he did with Booker. He waited, he didn’t say anything when they were all strapped own in their beds. He asked Joe to stop yelling, he waited until everyone was safe, and settled. Then he prepared his shot.

Booker sucks in a breath. He hadn’t thought about it all. He hadn’t thought about his actions this way, even in the beginning of his exile. He sat there, waiting for it to be over. When you live many years, does it matter those you waste? Then he thinks of Nicky and Joe. His brothers, his family, his enemy. Everything about their lives, he loathed. The way Joe laughed easily whenever he said something moribund. The way Nicky always crinkled a smile when he would be against a plan. The way the two showed he and Andy over and over how to _live_ with this curse of immortality.

Except Nicky’s not _moving_.

He hasn’t been, for a while. Booker would think he was dead if it weren’t for the faint monitor in the background, beeping quietly in the room. It’s the only thing keeping him from spiraling into complete madness. Because if Nicky died? If he died, strapped next to him after coming after Booker?

Booker isn’t sure if he could handle that.

He isn’t sure he would bounce back. After everything, after losing Nicky after the two of them sat together for weeks. Or days. Months? He doesn’t know. Time has all blended together in a way he never experienced.

There’s a small gasp to his left and Booker closes his eyes. He wishes he had the ability to run his hands down his face because a few tears escaped. He blames it on the fact that his body is _so. Tired._ He’s been injected, prodded, scraped, and cut. His body sluggishly heals and then he passes out, and then hears Nicky next to him, trying to breathe.

It would be so much easier if he had something to believe in. God, the warmth of a lover, who knows.

Then Andy’s face comes to him. Joe’s. Hell, Nile’s.

He… believes in them.

Booker never really believed in anything before. Not Napoleon, not immortality, not God. But he believes in his family. He believes that they will come.

“Still with me Nicoló?” Booker asks and Nicky makes a noise next to him that sounds like he’d rather not be. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

The man makes a few noises, but Booker knows he’s more annoyed than in pain, which is a good thing. “Yeah, well, at least you haven’t been injected with malaria. I still have sores.” Nicky grunts in response. “Oh, whatever, you’re just whining now.”

Booker looks over at the man his eyes are still resolute. He wonders how he can be so calm and solid when they’re in that situation, but he is all the same. “You know, you’re going to use this as an excuse not to make dinner on Thursdays. It’s a tradition! Plus, if I have to smell Andy burn a quesadilla again, I’m going to lose my fucking mind.” Nicky doesn’t make a sound. “I’m sorry, I know I’m assuming that I can come to Thursday dinner again. I know I’m technically not allowed, but still. Andy is mortal. She’ll want you to feed her constantly. You know how she gets.”

Nicky taps one finger.

“Man, I didn’t think I would miss anything other than you guys, but your gnocchi, man. I don’t know about God, but I think He would even cry.”

Nicky snorts, his throat catching against the metal bar. It seems to remind him of his particular predicament and his face falls. Booker catches it and sucks in a breath. “You know,” he says, catching the way that he hates when he’s _feeling_ things to much. “I fully expect you to keep Joe from killing me. Because we’ve bonded now. You’ve heard me talk about my wife and my kids, now you have to protect me from your husband’s rage.”

Nicky sighs.

“You know, that night, when we were watching the game?” Booker says, laying there, his hands clenched in fists. “You were reading a book, Joe was sketching next to me. I forgot. I _forgot._ ” Booker muses his mind somewhere distant. “It was nice. It felt safe, and I forgot that they were even coming. I-I want that. I was afraid to say it before. I didn’t understand it.”

His heart aches. He has to look past, or it’ll drown him further. “Five hundred Joe kills me on sight.”

Nile makes a noise and the heart monitor makes a stranger one. He swallows, neck straining against the metal. The monitor next to him is starting to ratches up, and his hands are clenched into fists. They tremble and squeeze, his halted breaths like claws on a chalkboard. “Um, what’s going on?” Booker asks as the machines start to make noises that don’t sound safe or healthy. “Nic— _Nicky_ what is happening? Hey, hey, calm down.”

Except he isn’t calming down. His forehead beads with sweat and skin flushes a deep red as he struggles to breathe. “Can we get this off of him?” Booker shouts, realizing he’s slipped into French in his panic. “Take it off, he can’t breathe!”

“He’ll just come back,” one of the guards offhandedly, as if he’s bored with their curse. “Be quiet.”

Booker has been treated poorly before. Hell, he deserted Napoleon because the man was leading him into a suicide mission. But he’s never felt so feral, so inhuman. Something that’s not even a person. They weren’t lying to him, they weren’t pretending they viewed him as a person. They were cold and obvious in their treatment as a specimen.

The monitor begins to slow. It makes that awful flatline sound erupts in the room. “No—” He yells, pulling against this restraints. He feels his wrist snap, the bone sluggishly trying to connect back together. But when he does, his body vaults forward and he somehow manages to _yank_ his arm out of the restraint. Booker isn’t entirely sure how it happens, but it does and he wonders if Nicky was as surprised when he managed to escape.

The guards in the room seems as surprised as he is because they don’t do anything right away. They stare at them, guns in their hands.

Booker pauses.

He only has two options:

Lay down and die.

Fight and die.

Well, if he’s going to die anyways, may as well do something with it.

His brother taught him that.

***

Three bodies are on the ground. Joe stands over them, scimitar in hand. He doesn’t really remember killing them. But they’re at his feet, their bodies scattered and blood sprinkled over the marble floors. He stares at them and can’t find any empathy for him. He sees them sprawled on the floor and he thinks that it isn’t enough.

“Focus.” Andy whispers next to him as if she can read his thoughts. Maybe after all these years, she can. Joe thinks that if he sees Nicky, maybe the rage that’s been brewing inside of him may slowly dissipate. But as it stands, he feels like he’s slowly losing his mind, the hours apart dripping away like molasses.

Clearing his throat, Joe steps over the bodies without another look in their direction. It’s all his restraint he can muster not to forge ahead of Andy, who is leading the charge as usual. He knows she always goes first, but a part of him wonders if she would allow him this one kindness. She doesn’t, but he can’t help but think it may be a kindness he doesn’t appreciate. He gun is out and Nile’s close to her, ready to jump in front if the situation calls for it.

The guards are plentiful and as vicious as guards can be, but Joe’s anger is more so. There is nothing that they could do that would stop him from moving forward, stop him from finding his love. It’s almost sad, the way they continue to come and continue to fall, just like anyone who has ever thought his love was fragile. He’s killed for less, but never for more. There’s nothing he would consider dying for more than Nicky.

_“The lab is down the hall to the left.”_ Copley says in his ear, Andy nodding sharply. She gestures to Nile, who scurries across the hallway to the other side, peeking around the corner.

Faint gunshots resound in the lab, everyone frantically looking around for the source. It’s coming from the doorway on the left, people shouting and yelling. It’s too faint and drowned out by gunshots for Joe to understand what they’re yelling, and it takes him an embarrassing amount of time to register exactly _what_ room that is.

Andy’s eyes widen when it occurs to her as well, jumping in front of him as he pushes forward. “Joe, we need—”

_“No.”_ He snaps, shoving her hard enough away from him to have her stumble back. He unsheathes his simitar from his back and it’s as if time slows.

He can hear his heart louder than the gunshots. There’s nothing in front of him. Just linoleum tiles, horrible florescent lights, and some flashes from a doorway. His ears are ringing, his entire body feels as if someone set it ablaze. Everything is fuzzy and sharp at the same time, and he isn’t sure how that can be.

_“My love, it is time to rest.”_ He remembers telling Nicky before flying to Paris, the two of them curled around each other in the back of a drug running plane. _“We do not know what we will find when we get there.”_

_Except Nicky tensed against him, his hands wrapping tightly around his own until his skin grew pale. His eyes are as old as Joe has ever seen, storms brewing underneath that the world wished to live up to. “You know how much I love you, yes?” Nicky finally said to him, trembling slightly underneath his fingertips. “What I would do?”_

_“Of course, my heart. I don’t question it because I know your heart like it’s my own.”_

_“It is.” Nicky whispers, but it’s solid and firm, just like his body pressed against Joe’s. “I—”_

_“I know.” Joe says, because Nicky didn’t need to say it. He never needed to. He understood the storms and understood his eyes and understood the hurt that vibrated under the man’s skin. “We will rest and we will face this like we’ve faced everything. Together.”_

_Nicky hesitates. Then he breaks Joe’s grip from around his shoulders and turns around so that he’s facing him, his eyes sharp and intense on the man’s face. Pressing his forehead against Joe’s, Nicky nods. “Until the end.”_

_“Until the end.”_

It is not the end.

Without any hesitation, Joe kicks the door open where the gunshots are ringing out, the scene more overwhelming than he expected. There are shots being fired around him and they’re pointing at someone. Joe sees a hand hanging above a cot and a bloodied hand there, and then he sees him.

Actually, he hears it.

He hears the flatline of the monitor and a still body on a bed covered in iron bars.

Then, time speeds up.

It happens so quick, he doesn’t remember doing anything. One moment, the guards have their guns out, with their backs turned to him, the next he’s standing in the center of the room, bodies littering the flood and blood pooling and speckling the once clean lab, his scimitar dripping at his side. No one moves, and neither does he, blinking as he tries to register what exactly happened, what snapped.

_“Jesus_ , Joe.” Someone says behind him and he turns to see Andy step in the doorway.

For weeks, he was a bomb, waiting. His time was slowly slipping away, the beeping louder in his ear. He was a bomb.

He exploded.

There was no one who could survive him.

“Fuck!” Someone shouts from behind the cot, riddled with bullet holes.

Nile blinks. “Booker?”

“Jesus Christ, what took you guys so fucking long?”

Except Joe doesn’t care. He turns to where the figure lies, chained down in the worst possible way. His anger is still there, vibrating under his skin like a poison, desperately clinging to destroy him.

Everyone gives him a wide breadth as he moves toward the still figure. He chokes, his entire body shaking. He can hear the flatlined monitor over his own heart, over any other noise in the room. A part of him can’t look at it. It’s too much all at once, the noise and the stillness. Everything moves slow and fast at the same time and he feels dizzy.

Underneath the iron bars is angry, red skin, raw and rubbed from what he can only imagine is resistance. The man is so still, but not in a way he recognizes. Reaching out, Joe’s hands shake as he touches the man’s face, eyes closed and skin paler than he’s ever seen. The flatline is screaming at him, but his mind can’t process what’s happening. _“Wake, my love.”_ He whispers, bringing his forehead down. Nicky doesn’t move, he doesn’t breathe, he just lies there in a way he never should. _“Come back to me. I found you. Come back.”_

There’s some movement beside him and he swings his scimitar up. He doesn’t see the person next to him at first, the world blurry for anything that isn’t Nicky.

“Here.”

He hears Quynh’s voice, still not seeing her. In her hands are a pair of keys, offered up. It feels like more than just keys, like a peace offering, like an olive branch. He doesn’t know, but there’s a part of him that does care. He takes them and turns back to Nicky, his entire body almost out of control. Somehow he manages to unlock each of the bars with shaking hands, but Nicky doesn’t gasp or come back.

Joe swallows. Because _no._ _No._

He’s not interested. Not interested in any of this if Nicky isn’t next to him.

Sitting down on the cot, Joe sucks in a breath. He runs his hands through Nicky’s hair, humming softly. It’s a song Nicky would sing in the kitchen when he was cooking. Joe never realized how much his enjoyment of food was all because of Nicky. Not just because of his skill, but everything about it. How he sang to himself while he was moving around the room, how he would ask Joe to taste things as the man sketched close by. The way he could sometimes would wrap Joe in a tight hug as he waits for something to boil or how he always has his cooking wine and his meal wine.

Food tasted bland over the past few weeks, like he wasn’t eating anything at all. The joy, the love, all erased.

“Come back to me,” he whispers, holding the sides of his face, wishing that he could will the man. If he could give him pieces of his heart to get it to start beating again, he would. “Come back,”

The monitor screams.

With a sharp movement, the man jerks violently, clearly used to being restrained in the worst possible way. He would’ve slam his head against Joe’s if Joe wasn’t already there, ready to catch him, like he always promised he would. Nicky’s eyes are wild as he turns his head and seems surprised by this movement. His gaze is distant and confused, until he locks eyes on Joe.

Joe thinks the night sky has nothing on the love of his life.

Nicky is there in his hands, warm and alive, eyes watering as he stares at Joe. Joe is frozen, unable to process what is happening. His heart, his moon, his love is in his hands and he’s _alive._ Joe doesn’t move because he’s afraid to hurting him.

Seems like Nicky has no such reservations.

The man places his hands on the sides of Joe’s face and pulls him in for a kiss, desperate and filled with longing. Joe doesn’t break it away, breathing the man in that he had memorized for almost a millennia.

It’s short and infinite.

When they break apart, Joe simply stares at the man who has a part of him forever.

“Where’s my welcome?”

Booker’s voice snaps Joe out of his reverie and his whips his head in direction of the man. The anger is back and it’s fierce, even with blood staining his face and bullets burrowing out of his body.

Then, there’s a huff.

Nicky’s turned toward the man, his eyes fond. The noise is a bit aborted and Joe frowns at the angry marks around his neck, wrists, and ankles. “Why aren’t you healing?” He asks frantically, bringing the man’s hand up in his.

Nicky opens his mouth and winces, no noise coming out.

“Yeah, about that.” Booker says when Nile helps him to his feet. “We’ve got a bit of a problem.”

***

Nile’s holding a large portion of Booker’s weight, wishing that immortality would come with super strength as well. The man has lost weight, thin and pale, but there’s something behind his eyes she’s never seen before. They’re shining and fierce, and he’s looking where Joe is holding Nicky up, like he’s considering doing it himself. Sure, he’d die a very quick death if he tried, but it’s alive and bright.

“You mean we didn’t have problems before we walked into this room?” Andy asks, stepping over the destroyed remains of a guard.

Booker rolls his eyes, clearly fighting any sort of dizziness he must be feeling. “Nicky can’t get shot.”

Nile watches as Joe pales, eyes flicking back and forth between Nicky and Booker. “Why?”

Nicky opens his mouth and nothing comes out, which doesn’t help his case. Nile winces as she looks at it, her own hands going up to her neck involuntarily. “He’s been injected with a serum that has slowed his healing _way_ down. He’s been coming back slower and slower.”

Nile can see Joe’s panic, but Nicky weakly jabs a finger at Booker.

“Yeah, yeah, I got the serum too, but I didn’t get the good stuff.” Booker says to Nicky. “You can thank your big mouth for that.”

Nicky throws him an unimpressed look.

“Oh, come _on_ , you know you were a little shit this entire time. Don’t deny it.”

Nicky taps his chest twice and Nile wonders absently if the man has a concussion.

“Seriously?” Booker exclaims. “You’re denying it? I was _there._ ”

Two more taps.

“Listen, you—”

“This is all very riveting, but now is not the time.” Andy cuts in. The woman looks just as confused as everyone else, her hand around her labrys tightening. “We need to get you out now. Because unless you would like to stay—”

Booker snorts. “Fuck you, Andy.”

“—I suggest we find a way out.”

Nile peers at everyone, finding this moment to be an odder one. Quynh is standing a few paces away from everyone, her hands tightly around her bow, Booker all but laying on top of her. Nicky is clearly trying to seem alert, but keeps resting his head on Joe’s shoulder, who doesn’t seem to mind, but clearly is growing more anxious the more he does it. “So, we have three people who can’t get shot and three people who can.” Nile states when no one offers any suggestions. “So, why don’t we team up. I’ll take Nicky—”

Joe’s head whips up at that, Nicky cracking an eye open. She wonders if he’s contemplating killing her again, but before he can say anything, Nile rolls her eyes. “Joe, I’m obviously kidding. Clearly you have him and I have the man clinging to me.”

“What? I am not _clinging—_ ”

“Which means Quynh, you have Andy.”

When Nile says it, she means it innocently enough. Nile genuinely doesn’t mean any implication by it, but when the two women whip their heads in her direction, she understands the meaning behind her words. Andy is decidedly not looking at Quynh and that’s all Quynh is doing.

“I’m sorry?” Quynh asks, her words low.

Except Nile has no time for it. She can feign being new or ask forgiveness later, but with Booker nearly passing out on her and Joe looking like he’ll never let go of Nicky ever again, there’s no time. “Clearly there’s a lot to talk about, but we need to move now.” Nile states, trying not to falter under Quynh’s dark stare.

There’s a tense, dark moment.

“Okay.” Quynh states, stringing her bow. “Because you helped me escape.” She nods to Nicky, who gives her a weak smile.

“Great.” Nile says, unable to stop her sarcasm from peeking through.

Booker’s head lolls next to hers. “Are you trying to do a parent trap?”

“Oh my god, you are definitely out of it.” Nile groans, shifting his weight. “Can you shoot a gun?”

“I’ve been shooting guns before you were born.”

“Obviously.” Nile sighs. “But can you shoot one right now?”

“I don’t have one right now.”

“I literally gave you one two minutes ago.”

Booker lifts his free hand that isn’t clinging to her and sure enough, there’s a gun in it. “Huh. I don’t remember that.”

Nile shifts him a bit. “So, Booker has a fever, probably from whatever they injected him with.”

“Nicky too,” Joe says, his words venomous.

“Alright,” Andy says, clearly a bit shaken when Quynh steps in front of her, decidedly not looking at the woman. “We get out of this. No more splitting up, no more going on suicide missions. We all are getting out and we are making sure these people never find us again.”

“Here, here,” Booker says, his words a bit slurred.

Nile leans in toward Andy. “Should I be worried about him?”

“Always.”

Except, as terrifying as the situation is, they’re together. They’re together and it’s as if something aligns into place. The hollowness of the past weeks was filling. She watches as Joe dips his head and gives Nicky a kiss on his temple, the way that Andy’s shoulders loosen ever so slightly. Even her anxiety has calmed and she can breathe a little easier. They aren’t even out, but she sees Nicky, she sees Booker, and she feels like she can finally be home.

“Let’s go.” Andy states, pushing past Quynh, gun out.

The lab gets loud and violent.

They must’ve learned from the massacre at Merrick Labs because there are so many of them, Nile can barely think straight. She shoots and she dives, throwing herself against Booker as he tries to help, but his aim is unusually poor. She turns to see Joe is having a similar problem, whirling around and wrapping his arms around Nicky’s shoulders as he takes several bullets to the back, collapsing to the ground with the both of them.

But Nile finally understands what Joe meant that Quynh was a pit viper in a fight.

Watching her and Andy fight together was like watching a dance, like watching a river flow. They slotted into place and it was beautiful. With every movement Quynh made, Andy was countering. The two of them fought and slashed, guards falling like drops of rain. Booker notices Nile’s face and snorts. “Told you.”

“Damn,” Nile breathes. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“And you never will again.” Booker states. “Also, shouldn’t you be doing something? Saving me, perhaps?”

“You’re awfully annoying for someone who was dying two seconds ago.” Nile grunts, shooting at a couple guards behind him.

“Funny how that goes, right?”

Except, the dance slows and explodes.

Nile sees it, but not quick enough.

Out of the corner of her eye, guards descend on Joe and Nicky. Their guns raise toward the two of them, Joe reacting and shoving Nicky away, so the man drops to the floor. Several shots ring out and Joe collapses, eyes open and glassy as he dies, blood seeping underneath him. Nile fires off a few quick shots, but there were too many of them after the men. One of the guards stands, his gun trained right at Nicky’s head.

Joe’s fingers twitch as his body heals, but it’s not quick enough.

Not—

A shot rings out.

Nile screams Nicky’s name, but the man is untouched and the guard is somehow on the floor.

“Fuck!” Booker yells, holding his hand against his now-bleeding thigh, the guard as dead as those around him.

She doesn’t know when Booker launched himself at the guard, but all she knows is Joe is twitching back to life, Nicky’s staring at the Frenchman, and Booker is swearing impressively in French. “Jesus, what was I thinking?” Booker groans, his face red. “I am still drugged up, why didn’t _you_ launch yourself?” He yells at Nile, but she knows he’s just teasing.

Before she can say anything, Nicky is scrambling over to where Joe is coming back to life, placing his hand on his back. Once he’s convinced the man is okay, he moves over to where Booker is, pacing his own hands against the man’s leg as it bleeds. Nicky stares at him and Booker doesn’t break eye contact.

Nile knows she’s never truly know what happened the past three weeks, every conversation, every incident. But the way the men are looking at each other, she thinks perhaps they will be okay. There is love there, respect, gratefulness.

“Five hundred I heal faster than you.”

The words are raspy, painful, and filled with good humor. Nicky grins at Booker, Joe shuffling next to him, his hands reaching out to find his love’s. Nicky reaches behind him and pulls Joe closer, but still maintains eye contact with Booker.

Booker gapes when Nicky speaks, his swearing stopping. The two men sit on the floor of the lab they were contained in. Captured. Tortured. Experimented on, sliced open, left to die.

Booker breaks out into a grin. “Always up to taking more of your money, old man.”

***

Nicky knows he shouldn’t be content until they’re entire out. Except he’s leaning against Joe, the man solid and _there_.

There’s a part of him that wonders if this is a dream. That the fever took him and he was living in a haze, dreaming that he was back with his love.

Honestly, given the situation, he’s fine with it if he got to have a respite. Except the man _smells_ and feels real, so he’s allowing himself to be led throughout. Nicky thinks that this was why. This is the why he fought.

He spent his life fighting for what he cared about. Fighting with everything he had for what he loved.

And now it was all here.

He feels a bit dazed and he can feel his body trying to heal, but it’s painful. Everyone is fighting their way through and he feels quite bad that he’s not being particularly helpful, but he can’t quite see straight.

They turn a corner, and everyone stops.

It takes Nicky a sad amount of time to realize what’s going on, but in the center of the room is Dr. Kozak, her hands filled with papers and eyes wide. The group of them take a step closer and suddenly Nicky can see again.

His anger is back.

She stands there, her hands clutching papers as if they were the love of her life.

Something takes over him.

It’s the anger again. The anger that made him fight in the name of God, the anger that made him kill Joe over and _over_ again, the anger that made him exile Booker for a hundred years.

He reaches behind Joe to where his broadsword is hanging in its sheath on his back, swinging it forward. Nicky is able to stand on his own, squeezing Joe’s hand before he lets go. His love lets him because he _understands_ and Nicky thinks how much he loves him.

Standing in front of her, Nicky brings his sword up to her eyelevel, not blinking. He draws on a strength that is within his core, helping him stand and face his demons, whoever they may be.

“I believe this can save the world.” She says, shaking, the papers in her hands, tube collected in her fist. “You have to understand.”

“I have only one question for you.” Nicky says, the sword not shaking. “Would you burn the world down to save it?”

She shakes her head, eyes red. “You don’t understand.”

“No,” Nicky states. “It is you who will never understand. Those who search for answers through the blood of others are destined to destroys themselves and everyone with them.”

Nicky blinks, tears welling in his eyes. “You cannot destroy people to save them.”

Dr. Kozak stands, trembling, shaking. Papers are starting to fall from her hands and Nicky grips his sword and—

_Enough_.

Dropping his hand, he turns around and looks at Joe.

Joe doesn’t have to ask a single question to know. Nicky knows he’s aware his mind is traveling back to the lands he destroyed, that he feels the pain and blood.

Nodding to Joe, Nicky moves away from the doctor. He can hear her sigh of relief behind him, which dissipates the moment Joe steps forward. Joe says something softly, causing Nicky’s mouth to turn up slightly. The man catches Booker’s gaze and nods at him as well, not flinching when he hears the swing of Joe’s scimitar and the collapse of Dr. Kozak to the ground.

“Time to burn this fucker to the ground.” Andy states, moving up to where Joe is.

When Nicky turns back toward Joe, he doesn’t spare a look at Dr. Kozak. He doesn’t need to.

Instead, he stands next to the love of his life and slips his hand into the man’s. Joe turns to face him, eyes warm and full of love in a way that makes Nicky know this isn’t a dream. He can _feel_ him, feel his heart and there’s only one thing that gives him the strength when he feels lost in darkness and that is Joe.

As Andy and Booker start to light the building ablaze, Nicky smiles at his love. Bringing a hand up to the man’s face, Nicky asks, “Do I want to know?” The words are painful against his throat, but he doesn’t care.

Joe beams at him and it’s like staring at the sun. Nicky basks in the warmth of his touch and the brightness of the soul and it’s moments like these where he isn’t sure if God exists, but if He is, the evidence is in Joe. The man must be created by a higher power, because there is no way man could find the part of his soul that quells the anger and monsters in his heart.

“In love, is absolution.” Joe whispers in his ear, bringing the man closer so there is no space between them. The world seems to melt away, Nicky lost in the eyes of the man he only was able to dream. “She will never find answers, because she does not understand love.”

“Incurable romantic.” Nicky says with every ounce of affection he can muster.

When their lips meet, Nicky finds his soul slotting back together. The ghosts of the bars and the needles are dripping away like sand to sea and he’s finding his breath again. Every part of him is afire again, but in a way that makes him feel alive and free at the same time.

The fire starts to grow around them, ready to turn the bodies who tortured him to ash, and Nicky thinks this is it. This is the good.

This is what causes him to move forward when despair eats at his mind. When the good die and the hard battles are lost, there is still hope.

Nicky was once asked what he would sacrifice for that of which he loved.

Wrapping his arms around Joe, pressing their bodies closer together so they cannot part, surrounded by those he loves most in the world, Nicky realizes his answer has never changed.

_Everything._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS.
> 
> The only thing left is the epilogue! LOTS of stuff to wrap up, plus I want an excuse to write fun banter, since this has been a pretty angsty fic. Thank you so much for dealing with me and reading! I love you all and I hope you enjoyed the rescue chapter!


	7. Seeing You Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi my loves! 
> 
> I can’t believe this is it! Thank you so much for reading and putting up with me while I started this. And now! The epilogue… some fluff and resolution for our loves!

CHAPTER SEVEN

_Seeing You Out_

It's strange because it's so quiet.

Booker would've thought that there'd be screaming, crying, some sort of celebration on the car ride home. Or rather, wherever they decided was home. Except there is none of that. 

Andy drives the car, her eyes hard on the road ahead. Nile has been gracious enough to sit in the passenger seat, saving everyone the uncomfortable decision while Quynh remains as far back as once could be in the old van they probably stole. Nicky was all but on Joe's lap, eyes shut and lost to the world as the man ran his hands through his hair. And Booker?

Well, Booker is sitting aside Quynh.

It's awkward to say the least.

He didn't really know the woman outside of his dreams and the one time she tried to use him as a pawn in her plan. Neither were particularly enjoyable, and he feels a little out of place. In fact, it's strange being so far away from Nicky, even though it's only a row of van seats. He'd be so accustomed to turning his head and seeing the man.

As if he can sense Booker's anxiety, there's a grunt from the middle row of seats and a rough, "Booker, I can't see you."

Booker chokes, unable to stop the emotion from rising up in his throat. "I'm back here."

"Why?"

One word.

One, simple world.

One beautiful, terrifying, wonderful, emotional word.

Booker throws a look at Quynh, who looks like she's genuinely considering launching herself from the van to get away from all of them. When she doesn't seem to even register his gaze, he hoists himself to the middle row in the single seat across from the two of them. Nicky's leaning against Joe with what Booker assumes is all his weight, his eyes closed and body trying to heal. He's still got the angry, red marks around his neck and limbs from the bar, but Booker thinks they're a bit lighter than they were.

Then, Nicky reaches out his free hand, the other caught in Joe's, who Booker knows will not be letting go for quite some time. It hangs out in the divide between the seats and Booker thinks it means something. Something much bigger than anything he could put into words. 

Booker reaches the rest of the way and grabs Nicky's hand. It's what he wanted to do when they were apart in their beds the entire time, his own limbs strapped down. When Booker wraps his hand around Nicky, the man cracks open an eye and gives him the smallest of smiles, before proceeding to go limp in Joe's embrace. 

Booker doesn't let go, though. He supposes he could, he isn't sure Nicky will be waking up for the rest of the ride, the man clearly at peace for the first time in however long they were taken. But he doesn't particularly want to. For the longest time, all he had was looks. A tilt of a head, a quick quip to make the two feel better than they once were.

Now, it feels a bit bigger. 

A lot bigger, actually.

It feels a little like the breadth of the world.

***

When the van slowly comes to a grinding halt outside Copley's house, Joe is still on edge. He finds that the adrenaline that typically filters out of his body on the drive back after a job has been clinging to his bones, making him feel like someone has shocked him. He can't help it, even with Nicky pressed against him, he feels like at any moment he'll blink and it'll all be gone.

The man is solid against his side, and there's something that slots back into place when he puts his weight on him, as if it's where he's meant to be. Which he is. Joe's never doubted this before, but the time that was stolen away from them has only strengthened his resolve. Pressing a kiss against his hair, Joe frowns when the van jerks forward and Nicky makes a pained noise. He knows that they should take a moment to celebrate being back together, but he finds himself unable to think of anything other than whatever tests the two underwent.

Because the fact is, he _isn't_ healing correctly. Joe runs his thumb over Nicky's wrist while his hand remains in his, staring at the welt marks as if he could will them away. They are healing, but it's too slow and Joe can't focus on anything else. 

Joe isn't a simple man, he knows what the cost of loving someone this intensely and this long would be. The loss of someone who became a part of your soul, a whole part of your world. The ocean wished it held depths deeper than their love.

But... Joe supposes, that depth comes at a cost.

A cost he isn't sure when he will have to pay. Except there are people who want them to pay it far before their time is due. It infuriates him in a way that makes him feel Andy's anger. That makes him want to throw his hands up and be done with it as well.

Except, as the love of his life opens an eye once the car stops, looking at him expectantly, Joe realizes that he hasn't moved. Everyone has left the car, including Quynh, and it's simply the two of them by themselves.

Nicky's eyes narrow and he reaches to close the door when Joe moves to leave. "It's alright my love," Nicky says, not letting go of him. "We are together again."

Joe knows this. He knows this because he can breathe again and now he feels the exhaustion of the explosion he became. Joe's fingers hover against the car handle, then they drop. "We are," he breathes.

Nicky shifts, wincing, until he's upright and fully facing Joe. Joe wants to argue, to tell him he needs to rest, but he's looking at Nicky's face. His _face._

For weeks, he had nothing more than dreams, memories. God, he was lucky to have almost a millennia of them. He wants to feel his presence on his side, but the only thing that could surpass that was looking in his eyes. Joe's tried to remain calm and quiet, but..

When his hands reach out, they're trembling. He barely can bring himself to touch the man. His hands hove on the side of his face, as if he's afraid that Nicky will disappear once he gets close. Reading his mind as usual, Nicky covers his hands and presses them the rest of the way to his face. When Joe's fingertips touches Nicky's cheeks, he breaks.

When Nicky was taken, he was a fire, raging across the world. When they were planning the escape, he was a bomb, waiting for the countdown to reach zero. When they were in the lab, he was the explosion, destroying anyone in his path.

Now with Nicky underneath his fingertips?

He cracks until he breaks, like dam waiting to break. It floods out of him and he squeezes his eyes shut and draws Nicky close. Their foreheads touch and he holds them there like that for a moment. A moment to simply be. Not be in a lab, not be apart, not be surrounded by people. Joe can hear his breath and he can hear Nicky's and his heart and everything starts to slow. His adrenaline and anxiety slowly filter the longer he holds Nicky.

The man is really is the moon to his sun. He revolves around him, providing balance when his own fire is too strong. When it blazes bright enough to burn everything down, Nicky is there. He's there and they are in their own universe and they are infinite.

When Joe is able to open his eyes, Nicky is gazing at him. With every part of his soul, Nicky is staring at him. Joe could write poems about those eyes - he has, on many occasions - and he thinks that he'd never be able to describe them in a way that would express what he felt when looking into them. His entire body calms. Letting out a shuddering breath, he leans a little closer, the whisper of their lips brushing against each others. "My world grew dim, with every moment you were away." He whispers against his lips.

"I did not fear it." Nicky responds, dipping his head more. "For my faith lies in you."

When Joe catches his lips fully, his bones are no longer aflame. The missing pieces were collected and placed back into his soul in the arms of his love, and his body can finally find rest. As if stars destined to circle one another, they collide into the most brilliant supernova anyone has seen.

Joe plans on shining as long as the Universe will allow.

***

Andy wipes the blood off her labrys in the kitchen under Copley's unimpressed gaze. The woman can't help but throw a smirk in his direction, as if _daring_ him to say something about the blood drips on the floor, especially given their history. To his credit, he holds his tongue and offers Andy a towel, sighing as he leaves the kitchen. Andy supposes it's what he deserves, given what they did.

It takes a while, but when Joe and Nicky saunter through the door of Copley's house, Andy sighs with relief. Joe's eyes are tired, but the joy that she's grown reliant on is back. He's looking at Nicky the same way he looks at art, which is both disgusting and beautiful at the same time. "We're going to be in the shower." Joe states as they make their way through the house and Andy snorts.

Moving next to her, Nile wipes her brow with a towel that looks far more expensive than anything Andy might own. She may even feel slightly bad for Copley, his entire house slowly being destroyed by immortals. "Shameless." Nile breathes, but it's not like the way she was exasperated before Paris. It was filled with love and reverence, and hope.

"Yeah," Andy says, smiling to herself as she continues to wipe down her labrys. "Shameless."

Nile turns so she's leaning against the countertops, her clothes stained with blood and hair slightly askew. Her eyes widen when something catches her eye at the entrance of the kitchen, comically animated like she was some sort of cartoon.

Andy has a feeling she knows what is, but she doesn’t want to turn around. For the longest time, she was able to push anything she felt aside, her mind filled with Nicky and Booker. But Booker is passed out on the couch with dried blood on his face and Nicky is in the shower with Joe and she can’t hide from it any longer.

When she turns around, she sees Quynh standing at the doorway, her eyes intense and boring into her. Andy swallows, using her thousands of years of compartmentalization to keep her expression neutral. Quynh is staring at her, her jacket still on, despite everyone else practically stripped down to the bare essentials. Nile makes a face. “Well, I’m gonna see if Copley has another shower. I think I have at least twenty people’s blood in my hair.”

Andy wants to tell her to stay, but also wants her to leave faster. When she finally does vacate the area, Andy sets her labrys down so it leans against the kitchen island, bracing herself. “You’re still here.”

Quynh doesn’t move. “I am.”

Andy isn’t sure what to say. The way the woman moves is just like she remembers, but slightly off. Her movements are as jagged as they are fluid, moving closer. Andy swallows. “I don’t know what to say.”

“That is not unlike you.” Quynh comments. “You were always better with actions. That’s why… I always thought you were coming.”

It’s as if time stops.

All the years they spent together. Every longing look, every war fought. They were in it until the end. Andy thought, at least.

“I don’t know what to say because, I don’t think I can express the horror I felt that day.” Andy says, leaning against the counter tops.

Quynh moves closer, but Andy can’t retreat any further. “Tell me.”

“I’m sorry?”

Quynh tilts her chin up. “Tell me the story.”

Andy sucks in a breath. She thinks of everything that’s happened between then, the time that’s passed. Even so, she remembers every moment with her. Andy can’t remember what her sisters looked like, but she remembers Quynh. The woman’s face is forever imprinted in her mind and soul.

“It took me two weeks to escape after they submerged you. They burned me alive, left me to die from exposure. I ended up dislocating my shoulder and killing everyone onsite. Joe and Nicky found me diving in the ocean a month later. They heard what had happened to you and came immediately. We searched for decades. I…” Andy blinks, trying to clear her eyes. “I _drowned_ them, over and over. _I_ drowned. They willingly did it. They continued to dive, they continued to search. Then there was one day. Twenty two years, three months, and seventeen days after diving into the water. There was one day, when the two of them took too long to wake up. Both of them. We’d been diving and I dragged them back out.

“It hit me all at once.” Andy sucks in a breath. “It took Joe thirty-six minutes to revive and Nicky thirty-two. I saw the way Nicky looked at Joe, the panic. I saw the way they held each other, and I realized, what I’d been asking. And I had to make a decision.” Andy closed her eyes, the tears escaping. “I’d been asking them to risk each other over and over. And I wanted to keep doing it. Every part of me wanted to keep asking. Because I knew if I asked, they would. They would continue diving under that water for me and for you. Risking each other. So… I had to stop.” Andy’s lower lip trembles. “I had to stop.”

Quynh doesn’t say anything.

“I’m so sorry, we stopped. We didn’t know what to do. We didn’t know where to look, where to find you. Then the people who were there were beginning to die, and slowly all our leads were gone. I’m sorry, Quynh. I’m sorry.” Andy states. “They couldn’t do it anymore. I-I couldn’t… I couldn’t do it anymore.”

Quynh stands there.

After a few moments, the tension billowing around them, Quynh moves closer to her. Her eyes are sharp and alert, staring at Andy in that way that makes her feel vulnerable, unlike with anyone else.

Without a word, she picks up a knife off the counter.

Andy doesn’t move. She knows that whatever Quynh decides, she is right in her anger. Trapped for five hundred years in a box, drowning in a box. What she needs, she should get.

Quynh lifts the blade and Andy doesn’t flinch. She prepares herself.

Quynh nicks her finger.

Blood beads on her skin. Andy startles more than if the woman had stabbed her, frowning at the way the blood drips down her hand. _Continues_ to drip down her hand.

“Y-You’re—” Andy stammers. “You’re not healing.”

Quynh sighs. “No, I am not.”

Andy is transfixed by the blood rolling down his finger. “B-But—” Andy is typically not one to be lost for words, but she can’t think of any. “But you were the person who had my back. You were keeping me from being shot.”

Quynh swallows and joins Andy at the counter. She turns so they’re touching shoulders, leaning against the counter of the kitchen. “I suppose I was.”

Andy can’t keep the incredulity out of her voice. “But… why?”

Quynh doesn’t respond right away. She holds pressure to her cut, the blood smearing against her palm. “I don’t know.” Quynh answers, her words broken. “I-I thought that I would want to see you die, but now that I know that both of us can’t die anymore, I-I realized. I don’t want to see you die. I think we lost our immortality at the same time for a reason. You never believed in that sort of thing, but I think it means something.”

Quynh turns to face her, her eyes filled with tears. They’re filled with depth like that of the ocean, dark and unyielding. “Quynh,” Andy whispers.

“I think,” Quynh states, putting her hand on the counter. “I think that I would like to stay.”

Andy doesn’t know what to say to that. It’s everything she thought about, ever since the coffin was cast off into the sea. She wants to say all the words that were caught in her throat the thousands of years they were apart, but finds she truly has nothing to say. “I would like that.” She chooses and it’s not enough, but it’s true.

Andy wonders if she’ll be able to come up with the words to express to Quynh how she feels. After all, she knows almost all of them. Except she can’t think of any. Sometimes there’s a limit to what she feels and what she says, and that limit is now.

Instead, the two women continue to stand in the kitchen, breathing and existing. They’ve existed for thousands of years, and friends, lovers, and then enemies. Now? With the remainder of their lives ahead of them, for the first time the possibilities are endless while the days are not.

***

He stands in the garden of Copley’s house and it crosses Booker’s mind that mortal people have much better taste. Everything is so ephemeral, so they dress it up. Copley has a large garden in the back that seems strange, but he remembers vaguely the man mentioning how much his wife loved flowers. Perhaps it was for her, perhaps it was to keep a shred of the woman with him forever. Whatever the reason, he enjoys it. The flowers are beautiful and the world is quiet.

When Andy trudges over to where he is, he sucks in a breath. It’s been a few days since the lab. Both he and Nicky have healed, though it seems that Nicky still has a fever and cough from the last injection, which has put Joe in a bit of a panic. Copley is doing his best to figure out what exact they were injected with, but it’ll be a while until Joe and Nicky have any space between the two of them. It’s how it goes. Whenever one dies a gruesome death, they become more insufferable than usual.

Except this time, Booker is having a hard time finding it as annoying as he used to.

Andy comes up next to him and sighs. She opens her mouth to start, but nothing comes out. “Just say it,” Booker sighs, not able to look at her. Instead he focuses on the flowers he’s surrounded by for lack of anything better around him. His flask weighs heavy in his pocket. “There’s still a price. None of this would’ve happened if Merrick hadn’t happened. Joe almost _lost_ Nicky. Like, I was there next to him, the man was dying over and over again. I get it now.” He offers Andy a weak smile. “Finally, I get it.”

“Yeah,” Andy agrees. “Joe is… well, I don’t need to tell you. But, we thought it’d be fair if Nicky made the decision again.”

Booker snorts. “Always the sniper, that man. So what’s the damage? Since he almost died. One hundred years still? Longer?”

Andy sets herself. “Nicky is… going to let you off with an apology. …to Joe.”

Booker freezes. “Um, fucking what?” Is the first thing that comes out of his mouth when he whirls around to stare.

Andy breaks out into a wide grin, true happiness on her face. Booker can’t remember the last time she looked this free, this open, and it’s a dazzling sight. “He’s going soft in his old age.” She teases.

“Wait,” Booker states, putting his hand up. “You’re kidding. You’re not kidding. You’re _kidding.”_

Andy shakes her head. “Not kidding. Nicky felt very strongly. You need to apologize to Joe and then you’re good.”

Booker blinks. “B-But, he _died_ , like a _lot_ , what about him?”

“He says you already apologized to him.” Andy states. “And he doesn’t feel like being separated from anyone anymore.”

Booker’s mouth is agape and he can’t help it.

He didn’t consider any of this.

He didn’t consider this would be an option.

When he looks up, he sees Joe and Nicky standing a few yards away. Up on the balcony is Copley and Nile laughing over something, clearly doing their best not to spy on the two in the garden.

Nicky leans against Joe, his eyes warm. The man smiles at him, eyes tired. Joe looks like he did at the beach what feels like a lifetime ago, except he’s holding Nicky’s hand and something softens.

Booker knows that things won’t magically return to the way they are. Too much has happened, too much pain has passed between them all.

_Have a little faith, Book_.

Booker never really believed in God. He didn’t believe in much. But he believed in this.

Something found across timelines, across countries, across beliefs.

Something that he belonged in.

***

It’s a gentle day.

Nicky loves it.

It’s been four months since they escaped the lab and Nicky finds himself feeling more free than he has in a while. Even before Merrick, Andy was traveling the world trying to find meaning, Booker off on his own and he and Joe doing good where they could. They were fractured and broken, spread out over the world.

Not anymore.

To everyone’s surprise, Quynh stayed with them, Andy and the woman relearning the people they’ve become. It took two month to convince her to sleep inside, even longer to have dinner with them. But she grew less afraid and more open, and for the first time in five hundred years, Nicky felt like they were exactly where they should be.

The team decided to hold off on any training of Nile until everyone healed on the inside and out. Joe decided language was more important then swords and Nicky agreed that he needed a new sus chef. So they all fell into a quiet routine and it was a gentler world than Nicky’s remembered in a while. Booker sometimes joins him in the kitchen, asking what he can do and Andy finds joy in small things again.

So when they find themselves on the small French beach, tucked in a place that Nicky would never think to look, it feels monumental.

Joe’s a few paces ahead of him, laughing wildly with Nile, who has slotted into place of the younger sister the two never knew they needed. Quynh and Andy are much further down, Andy leading her with her hand on the small of the woman’s back. Nicky thinks that this is what it was all for. They wanted to help the world, but also, they needed each other in ways no one would truly admit.

He smiles when Booker stands next to him. The man is clearly nervous, hesitating at the mouth of the woods they’d just traversed. He takes a breath, setting a foot on the beach.

Nicky’s grateful everyone pulled away, as if they knew.

“Are you doing alright, Booker?” Nicky asks when the man approaches him. “You alright with us being here?”

Booker doesn’t answer right away. His gaze is off in the distance where everyone else is, laughing and strolling down a beach that seems to be untouched by time. “It’s… exactly the same.” He offers quietly, his breath short. “I thought, after all these years… I dunno.” Running his hands down his face, he mutters. “It’d be different. But it’s just like it was.”

“Is that good or bad?”

Booker frowns, his eyes watering. “I-I… don’t know.”

The two man simply stand there, watching. Nicky doesn’t know what must be going through the man’s head, but he knows that sometimes words are not enough. So he stands, letting Booker know he’s there. Like they did in the beds, they reminded each other that they’re there. It’s enough to keep a man sane, enough to tape pieces together while they wait.

Side by side.

“I took my family here.” Booker finally says, letting out a shuddering breath. “I-It’s nice to bring my family here again.”

Nicky beams.

Down the beach, Joe turns and waves at the two of them, the sun glittering off his skin like the masterpiece the man is. Booker moves towards the love of his life and Nicky is content. He’s safe and he’s present, and the world has opened up for him. When Booker reaches Joe, the men exchange smiles, the pain from the betrayal still present, but filtering away. Joe claps the man on his back and Booker lets out a weak laugh, falling in line with Nile as she run to catch up with Andy and Quynh.

Joe hangs back, smiling in that way that makes Nicky feel more alive than he ever has. The man moves towards him and Nicky extends a hand to wrap around the middle of Joe’s waist. “Tell me what’s on your mind, my love.” Joe asks, extending his own arm across Nicky’s shoulders.

The sun is on his skin. He’s outside with everyone he loves. The only light is from the sun and his love’s heart. They’re all together, they’re healed. Later that night, Nicky will cook and they will be together.

Nicky remembers when Joe asked him the same question all those months ago. Booker had been banished and it had been at his hand. His anger was a monster brewing under his skin and he couldn’t contain it. It scared him, it scared him that he hadn’t learned.

“I think that if I spent every day here with you, I would never hold sorrow in my heart again.” Nicky says, the wind taking his words down the beach where the rest of his family is.

Joe dips his head and catches Nicky’s lips and it’s everything and more.

He feels the wind on his skin, his love under his fingertips, and his family around him.

This is what he believes in.

The good.

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Oh my gosh, it’s done! Thank you so much for taking the time to read and I hope you liked it! I loved writing these characters, and I always get so nervous taking on new fandoms because of that.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, and if you have time, leave a note! It warms my cold soul. I love you <3 <3 <3

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: YOU GUYS I CAN’T HELP MYSELF.
> 
> And I know a lot of people will disagree with me that Nicky is the one who chose Booker’s punishment. It’s just the last scene where he can’t even really look at Booker – Joe even nods at the man, but Nicky is already gone. I thought it’d be interesting if he was the one who made the end decision.
> 
> Also, I’m loving writing all these characters – they’re all so complex, I just hope I do them justice.
> 
> Also! I'm on Tumblr @chase-the-windandtouch-the-sky! I need someone to freak out about these characters with me, I feel like i'm on an island lol
> 
> I hope you enjoyed and don’t mind my shoving myself into another fandom. Much love! <3 <3 <3


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